### Modi’s party manifesto for this year’s elections promised to create jobs through investments in sectors such as pharmaceuticals and green energy.### Modi’s party manifesto for this year’s elections promised to create jobs through investments in sectors such as pharmaceuticals and green energy. India’s growing employment is largely coming from self-employed workers, unpaid employees and casual farm labourers, whose jobs are not equivalent to formal positions with regular salaries, private sector economists said on Wednesday. The government did not respond to emails seeking comment from Reuters. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose party lost its overall majority in parliament in last month’s elections and had to turn to allies to stay in power, first won power in 2014 on a promise to create 20 million jobs a year. However, he has since been criticized by analysts and political rivals for failing to deliver on his promises. Modi’s party manifesto for this year’s general elections promised to create jobs through investments in sectors such as infrastructure, pharmaceuticals and green energy. But the party’s failure to gain an absolute majority on its own was attributed to voter dissatisfaction over the lack of jobs and high inflation. “Yes, there has been a huge increase in the number of people who are, so to speak, employed,” said India’s former chief statistician, Pronab Sen. “But most of this increase has come in agriculture and in casual work.” The growth in employment in the agricultural sector was “extremely regressive” as it was at odds with the country’s objective of pulling more Indians out of agricultural work, he added. “Look, the question is, do you really believe there are that many jobs?” Sen said. “It seems unlikely.” The debate over India’s employment figures “muddied the waters,” he added. Government data shows that only 20.9 per cent of India’s total workforce earned a regular wage in the form of a salary in 2022/23. Economists have pointed to weak consumption in the economy, which grew by just 4% in 2023/24, half of gross domestic product (GDP), which grew by 8.2% globally. “We can disagree on the numbers, but ultimately we have to go by the outcome,” said Rupa Rege Nitsure, an independent economist. “If enough employment is created, then enough income should be generated and that should translate into higher consumption on a broad level. Why do we see so much inequality in consumer spending?”
Modi’s party manifesto for this year’s elections promised to create jobs through investments in sectors such as pharmaceuticals and green energy.
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By Reuters
Published: Wed Jul 10 2024, 10:48 am
India’s growing employment is largely coming from self-employed workers, unpaid employees and casual farm labourers, whose jobs are not equivalent to formal positions with regular salaries, private sector economists said on Wednesday.
The comments follow figures released this week by the Department of Labor showing that 20 million new jobs have been created each year since 2017/18, refuting a report by Citibank that said only 8.8 million jobs had been created each year since 2012.
“It is clear that there has been a huge increase in agriculture and self-employment, which includes own-account work and unpaid family work,” said Amit Basole, head of the Centre for Sustainable Employment at Azim Premji University.
The jump in employment cannot be equated with the creation of formal jobs with fixed wages, said Basole, who based his analysis on detailed data available up to and including the 2022/23 budget year.
In the fiscal year ending March 2024, employment in the economy rose by 46.7 million to a total of 643.3 million, from 596.7 million a year ago, the central bank said in a statement on Monday.
According to Basole, the Reserve Bank of India database showed that agricultural employment accounted for 48 million of the 100 million jobs created between the financial years 2017/18 and 2022/23.
“I wouldn’t call them jobs,” he added. “They’re just people working in agriculture or being self-employed outside of agriculture because there’s not enough demand for corporate workers.”
While the central bank gave a preliminary estimate of employment growth in 2023/24, it did not provide details of the sectors that saw those additions. That data was only available up to the previous year.
The central bank and the government did not respond to emails seeking comment from Reuters.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose party lost its overall majority in parliament in last month’s elections and had to turn to allies to stay in power, first won power in 2014 on a promise to create 20 million jobs a year.
However, he has since been criticized by analysts and political rivals for failing to deliver on his promises.
“The only mission of the Modi government is to ensure that the youth become unemployed,” Mallikarjun Kharge, president of the main opposition Congress party, said this week after the Citibank report revived the debate on jobs in India.
Modi’s party manifesto for this year’s general elections promised to create jobs through investments in sectors such as infrastructure, pharmaceuticals and green energy.
But the party’s failure to gain an absolute majority on its own was attributed to voter dissatisfaction over the lack of jobs and high inflation.
“Yes, there has been a huge increase in the number of people who are, so to speak, employed,” said India’s former chief statistician, Pronab Sen. “But most of this increase has come in agriculture and in casual work.”
The growth in employment in the agricultural sector was “extremely regressive” as it was at odds with the country’s objective of pulling more Indians out of agricultural work, he added.
“Look, the question is, do you really believe there are that many jobs?” Sen said. “It seems unlikely.”
The debate over India’s employment figures “muddied the waters,” he added.
Government data shows that only 20.9 per cent of India’s total workforce earned a regular wage in the form of a salary in 2022/23.
Economists have pointed to weak consumption in the economy, which grew by just 4% in 2023/24, half of gross domestic product (GDP), which grew by 8.2% globally.
“We can disagree on the numbers, but ultimately we have to go by the outcome,” said Rupa Rege Nitsure, an independent economist.
“If enough employment is created, then enough income should be generated and that should translate into higher consumption on a broad level. Why do we see so much inequality in consumer spending?”
