ABSTRACT
This chapter explains how informal labour has grown in the city of Mumbai during the neoliberal era. It shows that a sharp rise in waged employment occurred in informal enterprises in the 1990s and 2000s as well as a striking decline in employment in the so-called ‘organised sector’ and a relocation of industry and labour to informal enterprises in peri-urban areas. The chapter looks at historical studies of ‘de-industrialisation’ in Mumbai and offers three explanations for declining factory employment. These explanations incorporate the expansion of informal enterprises in trade and manufacturing, the closure of factories and the implementation of informal labour practices by industrialists.
