The Great Job Chase

FDI’s up, so is GDP. And yet the demographic dividend lies untapped. Here’s why.

- Lola Nayar

Blame it on global or domestic scenario, but the Modi government’s promise of ending a decade of jobless growth during the UPA regime is yet to deliver. This is despite a higher economic growth and over 50 per cent rise in FDI inflow in the last two years.

To break away from the joblessness, we need a structural shift in the sources of growth, but there is no such evidence,” says Mahesh Vyas, CEO and MD of the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), which tracks unemployment on a monthly basis. “At the same time, unemployment is very high at 9.8 per cent in August as against 8.65 per cent in July and 8.72 per cent in January this year. Going by evidence, we have not moved away from the jobless growth seen in the UPA years. If growth is happening, it is not generating employment.”

Government data reveals that in the Q4 (January­March) of 2015­16, India recorded an estimated 7.9 per cent growth; the figure was 6.7 per cent in the corresponding quarter of 2014­15. GDP growth during the first three quarters of 2015­16 was 7.5 per cent, 7.6 per cent and 7.2 per cent, respec­tively, but this has not translated into higher employment­generation.