• News
  • India News
  • The retail-friendly Indian: A shop for every 15 families
This story is from September 11, 2016

The retail-friendly Indian: A shop for every 15 families

Indians continue to show their entrepreneurial spirit - by opening more and more shops. With over 1.6 crore retail shops in the country, about one for every 15 families, this sector of work outguns every other.
The retail-friendly Indian: A shop for every 15 families
Indians continue to show their entrepreneurial spirit - by opening more and more shops. With over 1.6 crore retail shops in the country, about one for every 15 families, this sector of work outguns every other.
Key Highlights
  • Indians has over 1.6 crore retail shops, about one for every 15 families
  • Manufacturing is second to retail with over 1 crore units.
  • Manufacturing employs over 3 crore people beating retail trade, which has about 2.7 crore.
NEW DELHI: Indians continue to show their entrepreneurial spirit - by opening more and more shops. With over 1.6 crore retail shops in the country, about one for every 15 families, this sector of work outguns every other.
Manufacturing, considered the backbone of prosperity for any economy, is second to retail with over 1 crore units. But manufacturing employs over 3 crore people beating retail trade, which has about 2.7 crore.

Transport companies, warehousing, hotels and eateries, and healthcare-related enterprises are other major occupations, while educational enterprises have emerged as major employers with over 2 million such businesses employing nearly 1.1 million people.
These facts emerge from the 6th Economic Census conducted by the government in 2013, detailed results of which were released earlier this year. The economic census counts all kinds of enterprises across the country except cultivation of crops and their care and protection. In this census, some 5.8 crore enterprises were counted, employing over 13 crore persons. The previous one was done in 2005.
The sector that has really boomed is construction, with employment in it growing at a breathtaking 27 percent per year. This is 2013 data so it will not reflect subsequent travails of the sector.
Trade is in itself arguably the biggest employer if one adds up wholesale trade and sale and repair of motor vehicles which the Census counted separately. Putting all three together one gets about 1.8 cr enterprises employing 3.2 cr people, nearly 35 percent of all non-agricultural and non-extractive industries.
Employment Boom - Infographic - TOI

This picture of a bustling economic hive with vast numbers involved in diverse enterprise building needs to be tempered with some economic cold water. Nearly 96 percent of all enterprises employ one to five workers, with just 1.4 percent employing more than 10 workers. Compared to 2005, the share of enterprises in the 1-5 category has marginally increased.
This indicates the atomized and dispersed nature of entrepreneurial activity, which, especially in the case of manufacturing, speaks of a rather low economic level. Of the three cr manufacturing enterprises, about a third, that is one cr, are working without any hired worker.
Economists have suggested earlier that retail trade is in fact a last resort for families seeking to boost incomes by selling a few items in villages or weekly haats. This transient nature of retail trade seems to be confirmed by the fact that 25 percent of these establishments are run from within homes and 17 percent are run without any fixed structure.
End of Article
FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA