Weekly Numerics | The hottest 12 months on record, deepening wealth gap, and the rise of OTT

Weekly Numerics is a column where we present you with three to five charts based on major events or interesting data points that emerged during the week. Here are some of the figures we want to highlight.

The last 12 months were the hottest on record

Global temperatures rose alarmingly high during the 12 months from November 2022 to the end of October 2023, becoming the hottest year-long period in recorded history, according to a report released by Climate Central, a climate analytics organisation, this week.

Data shows that global temperatures went as high as 1.3 degrees Celsius above  pre-industrial levels during this period. The previous record was 1.29 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial baseline, reported over October 2015 to September 2016.

More than 90 percent of the global population experienced at least 10 days of abnormal temperatures due to climate change during the past 12 months, said the report. As much as 98 percent of India’s population experienced abnormal temperatures for at least 10 days during the year-long period. And around 86 percent of Indians had to survive at least a month-long period of abnormally high temperatures.

The report is based on Climate Central’s Climate Shift Index (CSI), which quantifies the local influence of climate change on daily temperatures around the world. The CSI scale is centred on zero. A CSI level of 1 means that climate change is detectable. CSI levels of 2 and higher correspond with the multipliers (2 = at least 2X hotter, 3 = at least 3X hotter, etc.). A negative CSI, for example -2, would signify temperatures that are unusually cool.

Although India recorded an overall CSI of 1 during the last one-year period, it had increased to 1.6 from May to October.

Some states saw a bigger rise in temperatures than others. With a CS1 of 3.6, Kerala saw the biggest rise in temperature from its normal levels. The CSI of Andaman & Nicobar and Puducherry stood at 3.3 and 3.2, respectively. Mizoram and Karnataka both had a CSI of 3.

Rising inequality

Although India has managed to bring down the share of its population living under multi-dimensional poverty, it has been unsuccessful in curbing income and wealth inequality, which has widened in the country over the years, the UNDP said in a recent report.

Between 2000 and 2022, India’s per capita income has soared from $442 to $2,389. Meanwhile, between 2004 and 2019, the country’s poverty rates (based on the international poverty measure of living on $2.15 per day) have declined from 40 to 10 percent. Moreover, between 2015-16 and 2019-21, the share of the population living in multi-dimensional poverty has also fallen from 25 to 15 percent.

“Despite these successes, poverty remains concentrated in states (such as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand) that are home to 45 percent of the country’s population, but contain 62 percent of its poor. In addition, many other people are very vulnerable, hovering just above the poverty line,” said the report.

As disparity persists despite India’s rapid growth, income distribution has become skewed in the country, said the report citing data from the World Inequality Database.

The top 10 percent of the population gets 57 percent of India’s national income, whereas the bottom 50 percent accounts for just around 13 percent. In fact, 22 percent of the national income goes to just the top 1 percent. According to the UNDP, this is one of the most unequal income distributions in the world.

Similar inequality exists in wealth as well. The top 10 percent of the population controls as much as 65 percent of the nation’s wealth, while the bottom 50 percent accounts for less than 6 percent.

Growth of OTT

With an audience of 481.1 million, OTT apps have penetrated as much as 34 percent of the population, according to estimates shared by media consulting firm Ormax Media in a recent report.

According to the report, India’s OTT audience has gone up by 13.5 percent between 2022 and 2023, and there are currently 75.9 million paid subscribers. However, around 52 percent of them are subscribed through bundled telecom packs, and not directly. Moreover, there are an additional 77.2 million users that consume content on paywalled OTT apps through subscriptions owned by friends and family.

However, as much as 68 percent of the OTT audience consume content only from free platforms. While 41 percent watch content from at least one platform other than YouTube, around 27 percent consume OTT content only from YouTube and social media.

Fall in employment

The number of employed persons in India fell to 422.3 million in October 2023, from 427.2 million a month before, according to data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE).

“The largest drop in jobs was in industry, specifically in construction. Services also recorded a fall in the number of employed persons, mainly in retail. The jobs lost in industry and services were added, to some extent, in agriculture. The manufacturing sector also absorbed an exceptional amount of labour in the month,” said a report released by CMIE.

India’s employment rate, which is the share of people of working age that are employed, fell from 38 percent in September to 37.5 in October.

In October, industrial jobs dropped from 113.5 million to 107.1 million, reflecting a seasonal shift as labour transitioned to agriculture and services. The churning across sectors is likely due to rising demand for labour for harvesting the kharif crop, and late October rabi sowing. However, the surprising aspect in this year’s figures is the magnitude of shrinkage seen in the industrial workforce.

On average, a loss of 3.4 million industrial jobs was recorded in the month of October between 2016 and 2022. However, this year, the number of industrial jobs lost has shot up to 6.4 million.

Within industries, the real estate and construction sector shed more than 20 million jobs in October, compared to the earlier average of 3.8 million. “It may be conjectured that restrictions on construction because of the sudden deterioration in air quality levels could have led to an exodus of labour from construction,” said CMIE in its report.