Socio-Economic Challenges of the Construction Boom: Transformation of Recruitment Methods and Employment Practices

India’s recent expansion in construction and real estate, particularly in Assam, has created significant employment opportunities and increased the variety of livelihood options. However, this growth has also resulted in severe socio-economic challenges for the workforce. Drawing on a mixed-methods field study of 765 construction workers across Guwahati, Dibrugarh, and Silchar, supplemented by 15 key-informant interviews, one unstructured interview, and three focus-group discussions, this paper maps recruitment mechanisms and employment practices that underpin the state’s building boom. The evidence shows that recruitment is dominated by labour contractors (“thikadars”), who account for over 84% of hires, while fewer than 15% of workers obtain jobs through daily-labour chowks or personal referrals. The workforce is overwhelmingly male (95%), young (mean age ≈28), frequently migrant or from minority communities, and generally poorly educated with limited access to vocational training. Employment is largely casual or short-term: written contracts, social security coverage and safety provisions are rare. Average daily wages reported were approximately ₹544 for men and ₹400 for women, with widespread reports of wage delays, high turnover, and hazardous working conditions. Qualitative narratives highlight gendered exposures, income insecurity, frequent wage delays, unsafe working conditions, widespread precarity, particularly among women, youth, and ethnic minorities, and coping strategies such as debt-financed recruitment and informal savings networks. By linking informal recruitment channels to segmented labour outcomes, the study demonstrates how the construction boom reproduces vulnerability rather than broad-based inclusion. The paper concludes with pragmatic policy recommendations, such as strengthened regulation of labour contractors, improved registration and welfare coverage, targeted skills interventions, and gender-sensitive workplace protections, to better align construction growth with equitable and safe employment.