Agriculture workforce declines by 7 pc

Chennai:

Agriculture , which still accounts for 42.1 per cent of state’s workforce, declined by 7 per cent as compared to pervious census which recorded it as livelihood of 49.3 per cent of the total workforce.

Interestingly, the data points out that more than half of those engaged in agriculture are females (54.9 per cent) while men account for a 35.39 per cent.

The census also highlighted that male cultivators decreased to 27 lakh from 33 lakh in 2001 census. Among females, the number of cultivators reduced to 15 lakh from 18.5 lakh recorded in Census 2001.

Among the districts, Villupuram has reported the highest number in cultivators and agriculture labourers with 3.7 lakh and 8.3 lakh respectively. Tirunelveli reports highest workers in household industry recording 2.4 lakh while Chennai has 18 lakh population which stands the highest in workers category.

Interestingly, the working population in Tamil Nadu grew by 17.9 per cent, which is marginally higher than the overall population growth rate of 15.6 pc during the decade.

The data, which was released on Friday, states that the male workers have grown by 18.4 per cent and female workers by 17.1 per cent.

As per census 2011, the total number of workers (who have worked for at least one day) in Tamil Nadu is 3.29 crore. Of this 2.14 crore are males and 1.14 crore are females. Of the increase of 50 lakh workers during the decade 2001-11, male workers accounted for 33 lakh and female workers 17 lakh.