Time finds a way to lift the veils that numb the masses, and soon, the mundane needs of hunger and work catch up, standing as the prime dissent against the unquestionable government. Development is what was promised in the 2014 elections, and job creation as one of the means. If one makes an effort to revisit time and the timeless speeches of the PM, they can find ambitious proclamations shouting jobs for the populous. Take a step forward and compare the stats of 2014 and 2019, and you will realize the hollowness behind the infiltrated hopes.
Reasons behind the shrinking Aggregate Employment
After the resignation of the chairman of the National Statistical Commission, it was speculated that the employment data that revealed unemployment rates to be the highest in 45 years was wilfully suppressed. The Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) data was made public on 31st May 2019, and bears some key takeaways:
- Aggregate Employment stood at 472.5 million in 2011-12 and stooped to 471.3 million in 2017-18, primarily driven by the loss of 24.7 million jobs by rural women, while the other segments had a net addition to the jobs. This decline is not new.
- The employment creation for rural males has seen a quadruple slowdown, where the employment in this segment increased by a mere 4.6 percent, contrasting sharply with a 16.8% increase in the previous period.
- The pace of employment expansion has also decelerated in the most recent period standing at 14.7 million, compared to 17.6 million in the previous period.
- The ‘Make in India’ initiative witnessed struggles and futility due to the enormous amounts that were washed away in imparting skills, yet yielded a negative reduction of 0.9 million in manufacturing employment.
- The benefits of ‘Skill India’ programme have seemingly bypassed every workforce segment, except for urban males.
Inferences
- Policy framework needs to extend beyond increasing MSPs, debt reliefs, and a simple cash transfer scheme. Public investment in agriculture along with MGNREGS are some decent mechanism to set the gears of the employment machinery to work.
- As the sectoral distribution of employment reveals, the majority of the rural workforce is still engaged in agriculture, thereby a crisis in the area affects agricultural employment. This, in turn, confirms the unremunerative returns from agriculture and consequent rise in the number of people abandoning this sector.
- If one argues that underemployment rates are not comparable with the previous period data considering some change in educational factors, then this hints towards the idea that those looking for jobs but unable to find them are voluntarily unemployed.
Final Words
While the conventional sectors of the economy are either shedding or inadequately absorbing the labor, the modern sectors are standing incapable at this juncture to accommodate the labor, including the educated as well. The issue is gaining sensitivity, with the opposition likely to realize and exploit this potential to scrutinize the existing power chiefs. Thereby, denial cannot prove itself to be a long-lasting defense, head-on confrontation with such crisis stands to be the forefront solution