If construction is booming, why are consumer staple sales so anaemic? Neelkanth Mishra explains

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Neelkanth Mishra, Chief Economist, Axis Bank, says “construction is considered the biggest employer after agriculture. So if construction activity is so strong, it is very surprising to me that for staples companies, the volume growth has been so anaemic. I can think of three or four reasons for this. All of them are contributors, it is very hard to conclude on how long they are going to last. The first is that perhaps we are looking at the wrong metrics. Because remember that in the bottom 50% of the population, which is what we are tracking through such metrics, brands are a luxury.”
The outsized bet that has worked so far this year is bet on urban India, the premiumisation trend. That K-shaped recovery has played out only for the uber rich, and it has not really played out for the rural economy per se. Even right now, the trends and the data points that you are seeing do not really point to a meaningful recovery in the rural end of the economy. Is that a worrisome sign?
It is indeed worrisome.

It is particularly worrisome because we do not understand why exactly that is happening because if you see strong cement volume growth, every indicator of construction activity has gone up. And however much you may automate, you cannot really build houses, build roads without employing a lot of construction labour. And if you remember the narrative at a time when construction activity used to be strong, which is before 2012-2013, it was considered the biggest employer after agriculture.