AI-generated practice question — model-generated for extra practice, not a previous-year CBSE board question.
The structural feature that enabled this shift was the industrialists' dependence on the jobber as the sole intermediary for recruitment. Since factory owners did not recruit workers directly, the jobber held exclusive control over who got hired. Workers outnumbered available jobs, so employment was scarce and highly competitive. Because desperate recruits had no other route into the mills, the jobber exploited his gatekeeper position — demanding money and gifts in exchange for jobs and using his authority to control workers' lives beyond the workplace.
Source: Chapter 4, Section 4.2 — Where Did the Workers Come From?
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The examiner wants you to identify the structural/systemic cause, not just describe what the jobber did. The key structural feature is that industrialists used jobbers as the only channel of recruitment, creating a monopoly of access. Combined with labour surplus (more seekers than jobs), this gave jobbers unchecked power. Avoid simply retelling the story — focus on why the system allowed abuse. Citing the passage detail about labour surplus strengthens the answer.