Data: Permanent employee strength of CPSEs declined by more than 35% in the last 8 years
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
August 23, 2022
In this second part of this series on CPSEs, we focus on human resources in terms of aspects like the personnel strength, caste-wise representation of the personnel, yearly trend of the human resources among other things. Data indicates that the permanent employee strength of CPSEs declined by more than 35% in the last 8 years.
In the first part of this two-part series, we looked at the financial aspects of the Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs). We looked at the financial performance of the CPSEs and indicators like the profit/loss, net worth, contribution to the central exchequer, foreign exchange earnings, and financial investments in CPSEs. In this second part, we focus on human resources in terms of aspects like the personnel strength, caste-wise representation of the personnel, and yearly trend of the human resources among other things.
Personnel Strength on a steady decline
Human resources play a crucial role in the efficient functioning of the CPSEs. However, the recent figures of the cumulative employee strength excluding the contract and the casual workers in all the CPSEs show a decline. There could be many reasons behind such decline – employees preferring other jobs, and internal restructuring among other things. While the reasons are not clear,  this decline in the workforce is a cause for concern, particularly because of the social relevance of the CPSEs.
Employment trend in top 12 CPSEs by share of employment
As mentioned earlier, one of the factors for attaching high social relevance to CPSEs is the sheer number of employment opportunities they provide for a diverse set of social groups. The decline is witnessed across CPSEs that have traditionally had high employee strength.
Employment trend in Top-12 CPSEs by market capitalization
Even if one looks at the top-10 CPSEs by market capitalization and their human resources, the trend is no different. Though these CPSEs are not necessarily the most employment-generating CPSEs, it can be observed that the employment in all these CPSEs except GAIL India Limited is on a constant decline.
An increasing share of SCs, STs, and OBCs cumulatively in total
We have earlier highlighted the social relevance of the CPSEs. One of the reasons for such high relevance is the reservation along caste groups in employment opportunities. This enables the candidates from those social groups to compete and secure employment, thereby gaining mobility. The composition of employees of these social groups accounted for 41.5% in March 2014, which further improved to 46.74% in 2017, and reached 50.13% in March 2021.
Caste groups at different levels of employment
Data indicates that there is an increase in the share of SCs, STs and OBCs in the overall cumulative personnel strength. To get a better idea of the dynamics behind such an increase, we further analysed the share of these groups at different levels of employment-Group A is managerial, Group B is supervisory, Group C is skilled workers and Group D is unskilled workers.
It is observed that for Group A, the share of SCs went from 5.4% in March 2014 to 7.1% in March 2021, while for STs, it went from 14.7% to 16.8% during the same period. However, for OBCs, the percentage rose from 12.8% to 21% during the same period. Similarly, for Group B, the share of SCs went from 14.9% in March 2014 to 17.9% in March 2021, while for STs, it went from 6.7% to 12.4%. For OBCs, the percentage rose from 13.5% to 23.5% during the same period. In Group C, SCs share fell from 20.2% in March 2014 to 18.8% in March 2021, while for STs, it rose from 10.3% to 11%. For OBCs, it increased from 16.9% to 25.5% during the same period. In Group D, the share of all social groups increased from March  2014 to March 2017. However, OBCs share fell from 21.8% to 18.2%, STs from 13.7% to 12.7%, and SCs from 20.21% to 14.9% from March  2017 to March  2021.
One can deduce that there is little improvement in SCs and STs categories, while the share of OBCs has considerably increased.
The share of women employees in CPSEs remains stagnant
It is widely acknowledged that having women in workplaces is vital for the success of organizations. Having greater gender diversity enables organizations to improve their governance and corporate values. Unfortunately, this does not seem to be the case with CPSEs. The share of women in the workforce has remained almost stagnant from 2012-13 to 2020-21. In 2012-13, it was 9.2%, which rose to 10.2% in 2016-17, the highest ever in the last decade. It again fell from 10.2% in 2016-17 to 9.4% in 2020-21. The share of women out of total employees at the managerial/executive level averages around 10%, at the supervisory level around 8%, and 9.5% at the worker level from 2012-13 to 2018-19.
Among cognate groups, Coal, Telecommunication & Information Technology and Heavy and Medium Engineering cognate groups employed the highest number of women as a percentage of their total employees in the year ending March 2021.
Per-Capita emoluments grew almost by 2.5 times during the last decade
As observed earlier, the total number of employees in the CPSEs has been decreasing considerably over the last few years. However, the capital emoluments per capita have been rising yearly. The total emoluments in 2009-10 were Rs. 87,792 Crore, which increased to Rs. 1,52,684 Crore in 2018-19. Similarly, the per capita emolument in 2009-10 was Rs. 5,89,210 which rose to Rs. 14,78,280 in 2018-19.
Featured Image: Permanent employee strength of CPSEs