Crisis Of Employment Has Deepened In Last Five Years

Along-awaited report from the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) on employment generation has put the central government in a tight spot.

- Kuntala Sarkar

According to the draft report from NSSO, the job market has dipped to its lowest in the last 45 years. Yet, according to the World Bank, India's GDP is expected to grow at 7.3% in FY 2018-19, and by 7.5% in the following two years. This growth might be attributed to a pickup in consumption and investment in the fastest growing economy in the world but it is questionable whether it will help the employment scenario in the country. In 2013, Narendra Modi had said in the run-up to the 2014 Lok Sabha election that if his government is voted into power, they will create 10 million jobs. In reality, the 2016-2017 Economic Survey based on data by the Labour Ministry stated that the employment growth has been ‘sluggish’.

Raghavan Jagannathan, a senior journalist in his book ‘The Jobs Crisis in India’, has researched on the reasons of this ‘jobless growth’. According to him, one of the main reasons behind this crisis is the fact that productivity in India is fast outpacing demand and India produces 0.18% extra jobs for every 1% growth in GDP. The looming threat of automation poses serious challenges for the Indian job market as well. The book also explores in detail the case where growth in India has been steadily delinking from employment.

Crisis