PM speaks about rise in job avenues for youth, data shows otherwise

Job seekers gather at a job fair

A. M. JIGEESH

 

NEW DELHI

JOBLESSNESS IN INDIA

The doors of opportunities are wide open for our youth globally. Countless new employment opportunities, which eluded us for many years after independence, now are at our doorstep, said PM Narendra Modi during his Independence Day speech.

A significant claim at a time when several reports, including the India Employment Report of the International Labour Organization (ILO), cautions policymakers about the country’s rising unemployment rate, particularly among youth.

“The youth of my country no longer wish to move slowly. They do not believe in incremental progress. Instead, they are in the mood to take leaps, to achieve new milestones by making bold strides. I would like to say that this is a golden era for Bharat. Compared to global conditions also, this is indeed our golden period.”

Earlier this week, the ILO, in its Global Employment Trends for Youth 2024 report, said young people around the world are unable to find secure work and chances of finding a job reduces as the income level of the country they reside in shrinks.

The ILO warned that the number of 15-24 year-olds not in employment, education or training is concerning, and the post-COVID 19 pandemic employment recovery was not universal.

“Young people in certain regions and many young women are not seeing the benefits of the economic recovery,” the ILO said in the report.

In India, the Opposition had been attacking the Centre not just over rising unemployment but also on the unavailability of statistics on the job scenario. The National Statistical Office of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation used to release Employment and Unemployment surveys until 2011-12. Since 2017, the Periodic Labour Force Surveys replaced the Employment and Unemployment surveys.

“India committed at the 19th International Conference of Labour Statisticians that it will have a comprehensive survey done based on the definitions of the ILO. But, no pilot surveys were done despite a decision to undertake such a survey based on the ILO definitions,” said Labour Economist Santosh Mehrotra.

“Despite that, the PLFS in 2017 came up with the highest unemployment rate in the country in the last 45 years,” he added.

In the first PLFS, it was found unemployment rate in rural areas, among males, for educated, between 2004-05 and 2011-12, ranged between 3.5-4.4%, which rose to 10.5% during 2017-18. For educated rural females, unemployment rate was 9.7- 15.2% between 2004-05 and 2011-12. This rose to 17.3% in 2017-18.

For educated males in urban areas, the unemployment rate stood at 3.6% to 5.1% between 2004-05 and 2011-12 that rose to 9.2% during 2017-18. Among the educated females in urban areas, the unemployment rate ranged between 10.3%- 15.6% which rose to 19.8% in 2017-18.

“There is no change in the approach towards this issue under the third Modi Government too. This situation is a policy-induced shock,” he said.

The Centre has been relying of late, on the KLEMS (K: Capital, L: Labour, E: Energy, M: Materials and S: Services) database published by the RBI, which showed employment in India rose to 64.33 crore in 2023-24 compared with 47.5 crore in 2017-18.

The Labour Ministry also showcased EPFO’s payroll data showing more than 1.3 crore net subscribers joined it in 2023-24. “Moreover, during last 6.5 years (September 2017 to March 2024) more than 6.2 crore net subscribers joined EPFO indicating rise in formalisation of employment,” the Centre said.

Prof. Mehrotra said the KLEMS counted the return of migrants to agriculture sector in distress as also jobs. “Policies such as demonetisation, unplanned GST and lockdowns created this scenario,” he said.

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