Logical (Critical) Reasoning Questions for CLAT | QB Set 86

India’s Labour Codes came into force in Novem­ber 2025, mark­ing the most sig­ni­fic­ant labour law reform since Inde­pend­ence. By con­sol­id­at­ing 29 cent­ral laws into four Codes, the reform aims to sim­plify com­pli­ance, uni­ver­sal­ise min­imum wages, expand social pro­tec­tion, and mod­ern­ise work­place reg­u­la­tion. Policy debates often por­tray the Codes as a bal­an­cing act between labour flex­ib­il­ity and worker pro­tec­tion.

Prior to the con­sol­id­a­tion, India’s labour regime was frag­men­ted across mul­tiple Cent­ral and State laws gov­ern­ing wages, indus­trial rela­tions, social secur­ity, and work­ing con­di­tions. With labour on the Con­cur­rent List, this res­ul­ted in uneven enforce­ment and wide inter­State vari­ation. Cru­cially, most pro­tec­tions applied only to the formal sec­tor, leav­ing informal, con­tract, and cas­ual work­ers, who form the bulk of the work­force, out­side the scope of reg­u­la­tion. Against this back­drop, the gov­ern­ment intro­duced four Labour Codes between 2019 and 2020.

In 2024, India’s median age was under 30, com­pared to around 40 in China and 50 in Japan. With nearly half the pop­u­la­tion still young, under­stand­ing how these changes affect youth employ­ment is crit­ical.

Des­pite its demo­graphic advant­age, India faces a pro­nounced youth employ­ment crisis. Accord­ing to the Peri­odic Labour Force Sur­vey (PLFS) 2023­24, labour force par­ti­cip­a­tion among those aged 15­29 stood at 46.5%, far below the 76.4% observed among those aged 30­59. Youth unem­ploy­ment is 10.2%, com­pared to less than 1% for older adults.

Gender dis­par­it­ies fur­ther widen these gaps. Only 28.8% of young women par­ti­cip­ate in the labour force, com­pared to 63.5% of young men. In urban areas, unem­ploy­ment among young women reached 20.1%.

Across all PLFS rounds, young work­ers are more likely than adults to be unpaid fam­ily work­ers within self­employ­ment. They are dis­pro­por­tion­ately con­cen­trated in informal employ­ment. In 202324, nearly 90% of young work­ers were inform­ally employed. Even within reg­u­lar salar­ied jobs, 60.5% of young reg­u­lar work­ers lacked social secur­ity, com­pared to 50.5% among work­ers above 30.

Con­trac­tual insec­ur­ity is also higher among youth. In 2023­24, 66.1% of young reg­u­lar work­ers had no writ­ten con­tract, versus 53.6% for older ones. Only 16.5% of young work­ers had long­term con­tracts exceed­ing three years, com­pared to 35.4% among adults.

Young work­ers are also overrep­res­en­ted in plat­form­based gig work. A NITI Aayog estim­ate sug­gests that 77 lakh work­ers were engaged in the gig eco­nomy in 202021, a fig­ure pro­jec­ted to rise to 2.35 crore by 2029­30.

Against this back­drop, the new Labour Codes aim to pro­mote form­al­isa­tion while improv­ing the ease of doing busi­ness. The intro­duc­tion of a stat­utory national floor wage could raise earn­ings for young work­ers clustered in lowpaid, entry­level jobs. If firms increas­ingly rely on fixed­term con­tracts, the Codes man­date par­ity in wages and bene­fits with per­man­ent work­ers.

The require­ment of appoint­ment let­ters for all work­ers and guar­an­teed wage pay­ments, even dur­ing leave, strengthens baseline employ­ment secur­ity. The Code on Social Secur­ity extends wel­fare schemes cov­er­ing health, mater­nity, dis­ab­il­ity, edu­ca­tion, and skill devel­op­ment to unor­gan­ised work­ers. Gig and plat­form work­ers are expli­citly recog­nised in national law, with pro­vi­sions for regis­tra­tion from age 16 and the cre­ation of National and State Social Secur­ity Boards. Unlike the earlier Unor­gan­ised Work­ers’ Social Secur­ity Act (2008), which had lim­ited impact, the new Code offers clearer insti­tu­tional mech­an­isms.

Labour mar­ket trans­par­ency is also enhanced through man­dat­ory vacancy report­ing to career centres. The Indus­trial Rela­tions Code fur­ther affects youth employ­ment by redu­cing hir­ing fric­tions through a higher retrench­ment threshold. It provides legal clar­ity for con­tract labour and fixed­term employ­ment cat­egor­ies dom­in­ated by young work­ers while extend­ing bene­fits such as leave, health cover, social secur­ity, and gra­tu­ity to fixed­term employ­ees after just one year of ser­vice.

However, sev­eral chal­lenges remain. Many pro­vi­sions for unor­gan­ised and gig work­ers mir­ror those under the 2008 Act, includ­ing a size­based defin­i­tion of enter­prises with fewer than 10 work­ers. PLFS 2023­24 shows that 42.7% of young work­ers lack writ­ten con­tracts, and nearly one­fifth of them work in enter­prises with more than 10 work­ers, leav­ing sig­ni­fic­ant gaps in cov­er­age. Dis­cre­tion­ary lan­guage in pro­vi­sions for gig work­ers and weak stat­ist­ical defin­i­tions of digital plat­form employ­ment com­plic­ate cov­er­age, espe­cially given wide­spread mul­tiple job­hold­ing. Des­pite the Second National Com­mis­sion on Labour hav­ing urged the gov­ern­ment as early as 2002 to mod­ern­ise labour pro­tec­tions in response to tech­no­lo­gical change and evolving work arrange­ments, two dec­ades later, policy fol­low­through and stat­ist­ical innov­a­tion have been slow.

These gaps point to an urgent need for stronger labour data sys­tems and pro­act­ive worker regis­tra­tion. Identi­fy­ing gig and plat­form work­ers in national sur­veys, instead of sub­sum­ing them under broad self­employ­ment cat­egor­ies, would strengthen policy design and pro­tec­tion.

(Source: The Hindu)

Question 1

Which of the following best captures the primary policy tension highlighted in the passage regarding the new Labour Codes?

A. The conflict between Central and State governments over labour regulation
B. The challenge of balancing demographic growth with economic slowdown
C. The attempt to balance labour market flexibility with worker protection
D. The trade-off between informal employment and technological innovation

Answer: C

Question 2

The authors mention that nearly 90% of young workers were informally employed in 2023–24. This statistic is used mainly to support which of the following arguments?

A. That young workers are disproportionately excluded from formal labour protections
B. That informal employment is more prevalent among youth than adults globally
C. That informal work is a temporary phase for most young workers
D. That informal employment is declining due to Labour Code reforms

Answer: A

Question 3

Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the claim that the new Labour Codes meaningfully improve social security coverage for young workers?

A. A majority of young workers prefer gig and contract work due to flexibility
B. Employers increasingly issue appointment letters to comply with the Codes
C. State governments actively implement registration mechanisms for gig workers
D. A large proportion of young workers remain unregistered due to lack of awareness

Answer: D

Question 4

The passage suggests that the limited impact of the Unorganised Workers’ Social Security Act, 2008 was primarily due to:

A. Weak institutional mechanisms and poor implementation
B. Excessive compliance costs imposed on small enterprises
C. Judicial resistance to expanding labour protections
D. The absence of demographic data on young workers

Answer: A

Question 5

Which of the following conclusions can be most reasonably drawn from the authors’ discussion on labour data and statistical definitions?

A. Existing labour surveys accurately capture emerging forms of employment
B. Better identification of gig workers would improve policy effectiveness
C. Multiple job-holding among youth reduces unemployment figures artificially
D. Labour Codes have resolved most data-related policy challenges

Answer: B