What is seasonal unemployment? Suggest measures for reducing this kind of unemployment in India.
It occurs in case of agriculture, ice-cream factories, wollens factories, etc which are a seasonal occupation, "rfiey have busy seasons and they have stack reasons. In the off-season, there is no work. The result is seasonal unemployment.
Following measures may be suggested to reduce seasonal unemployment
(i) Promotion of multiple cropping, i.e., raising more than one ctop on the same piece of land in a year by spread of irrigation use of fertilisers, mechanisation, etc.
(ii) Development of activities allied to agriculture such as animal husbandry, dairy farming, horticulture, etc to provide extra employment throughout the year.
(iii) Public investment in rural areas in such fields as irrigation, drainage, flood control, land and environment, improvement of rural roads, schools, hospitals, etc.
(iv) Promotion of on-farm investment. Over haul of machinery, training of farm labour and programmes for eradication of illiteracy during slack seasons.
(v) Mechanisation of peak season activities so that a proportion of the labour force is permanently shifted from agriculture to non- seasonal activities and surplus labour in the slack season is reduced.
(vi) Establishment of a variety of industries which operate at different times of the year so that labour may he kept employed almost throughout the year by shifting from one seasonal
. industry to another.