Nature and Extent of Unemployment among the Fruit Growers in Himachal Pradesh

— It is well known that acuteness of unemployment varies from country to country, from region to region and from one section of society to others. But this problem is more serious in the developing countries as compared to the developed countries. The nature of unemployment prevailing in developing countries sharply differs from that of the developed countries of the world. Creating meaningful jobs is a global problem and it is not different for Himachal Pradesh. The linchpins of the State Economy are agriculture and Horticulture, contributing 22.5 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product and Employing 71 per cent of the working population. In the present study an attempt has been made to examine the nature and extent of unemployment among the fruit growers in Himachal Pradesh. In order to achieve the objectives, the extent of unemployment has been worked out with the help of ‘Time and Willingness Criterion'. The results show that according to Time and Willingness Criterion the extent of unemployment among the pome fruit growers has been worked to out to be 13.44 and 26.66 per cent and whereas among the stone fruit growers it is 20.16 and 33.93 per cent. The results further shows that the extent of unemploy