Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Will promise of millions of jobs remain a mirage?' that was published in Newsband

Will promise of millions of jobs remain a mirage?

India requires 20 million new jobs each year. 10-12 million youth are joining the labour force every year. Each Indian government has sought to address this with a patchwork of solutions. These have included financial handouts to keep unviable farms staggering along for a few more years, creating large numbers of pointless government jobs, import substitution strategies and, as the present regime is doing, encouraging self-employment. The private sector chipped in by seizing the opportunity created by the arrival of call centres and internet-based services.

Three years of Modi government has witnessed Job-creation promise falling short as unemployment rate went up. A shift in the pattern of employment from permanent jobs to casual and contract employment has an “adverse effect” on the level of wages, stability of employment, and employees’ social security.

How the BJP government has performed on job creation. The country was dragged through 10 years of Jobless Growth by the Congress-led UPA Government. The BJP had said in its manifesto for the 2014 general election, “Under the broader economic revival, BJP will accord high priority to job creation and opportunities for entrepreneurship.”

Narendra Modi, then campaigning for the position of Prime Minister, had said the BJP would create 10 million jobs: Yet, the 2016-17 Economic Survey, based on data from the labour ministry, stated: “Employment growth has been sluggish.” The survey includes workers in both formal and informal parts of the economy, as well as those working as casual workers in public works programmes.

The eight major sectors of manufacturing, trade, construction, education, health, information technology, transport, and accommodation and restaurant created 641,000 jobs. The Economic Survey pointed to a shift in the pattern of employment from permanent jobs to casual and contract employment.

The Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP)–which aims to generate employment in rural and urban areas by starting new micro enterprises and small projects–has fallen 24.4% from 428,000 in 2012-13 to 323,362 in 2015-16, according to government data. Until October 2016, the programme had created an additional 187,252 jobs, according to the latest data available.

A further 15,768 people opened micro-enterprises under the National Urban Livelihoods Mission in 2016-17,

Job creation in high-growth India should be a top priority. There are almost no jobs available in India’s high-growth economy. Of the one million new people who join the workforce every month, only 0.01% of new workers added to the work force actually found work.

Employment in the formal sector has fallen since 1997. More and more people are being pushed into either lowest-end self-employment; or the most unprotected and casualised wage employment.

65% Indians are younger than 35 years, and legitimately dream of a better life built on well-paid and secure employment; therefore many among them chose to trust their futures with Modi’s leadership. But three years into his tenure, employment-creation has not proved to be all it was cut out to be.

More and more people are being pushed into either lowest-end self-employment; or the most unprotected and casualised wage employment. The worst-hit by jobless growth indeed are rural workers and distress migrants. A whole set of people who might have been independent peasants have been pushed into the ranks of agricultural labour. They have no rights, no security of income, they are subject to the worst kind of drudgery, they cannot be organised. Much mainstream thinking implies that shifting people from agriculture to what are a number of already overburdened, filthy, polluted mega-cities to work in factories, clean the floors of a shopping mall or work as a security guard improves the human condition.

Without reversing the agrarian crisis, mending the broken education system, installing greater labour protections and promoting labour-intensive small manufacturing, the promise of millions of jobs will remain a mirage.