Using national level employment data, the paper explores evolution of India’s occupational structure between 2004-2019. The paper categorizes occupations into high, mid, and low-skill occupations based on median wages and educational attainment. We find that high skill occupations increased rapidly, mid skill occupations stagnated, and low skill occupations declined. The shift-share decomposition analysis of employment growth shows that sectors that employ large proportion of country’s mid skill workers expanded but overall mid-skill employment increased moderately. The analysis also finds that structural changes are taking place in low skill employment, wherein workers are moving from a low skill occupation to another low skill occupation or dropping out of workforce. This is mainly due to lack of required skills and access to demand-driven training, restricting movement of people from low skill occupations to mid or high-skill occupations. This paper also explores the role of automation on employment in India. There is no evidence of automation affecting employment at national level, but some high-tech manufacturing sectors like automobiles and electronics are heading towards higher automation.

JEL codes: J21, J24, J31, J62