It means that there are more people in agriculture but everyone may not be fully occupied. So, even if a few people move out, production will not be affected.In this way, more number of people are engaged than required in agriculture. This is called as disguised unemployment.

Take the case of a small farmer, Gayathri, who owns about two hectares of unirrigated land, dependent only on rain and growing crops like jowar and redgram. All five members of her family work on the plot throughout the year. Why? They have nowhere else to go for work. You will see that everyone is working, none remains idle, but in actual fact, their labour effort gets divided. Each one is doing some work but no one is fully employed. This is the situation of people who are underemployed, where people are apparently working but all of them are made to work less than their potential. This kind of underemployment is hidden in contrast to someone who does not have a job and is clearly visible as unemployed.

Supposing, a landlord hires one or two members of the family to work on his land. Gayathri’s family is now able to earn some extra income through wages. Since you do not need five people to look after that small plot, two people moving out does not affect production on their farm. In the above example, two people may move to work in a factory, or trade. Once again, the earnings of the family would increase and they would also continue to produce as much from their land.

There are lakhs of farmers like Gayathri in India. This means that even if several people from agricultural sector are provided with proper work elsewhere, agricultural production will not suffer. The incomes of the people who take up other work would increase the total family income.

This underemployment can also happen in other sectors. For example, there are thousands of casual workers in the service sector in urban areas who search for daily employment. They are employed as painters, plumbers, repair persons and others doing odd jobs. Many of them don’t find work every day. Similarly, we see