New Delhi: A day the National Sample Survey Office’s Periodic Labour Force Survey recorded the unemployment rate in India at a 45-year-high, Prime Minister’s Economic Advisor, Bibek Debroy said that they will prepare a fresh jobs report.
“The survey will show that there has been a substantial increase in jobs,” said Debroy.
"It is important to realise that what is the role of the Modi government in jobs. It is partly union government and large part of what happens to business environment, jobs, employment is the problem of states,” he said.
“But Union government can facilitate enabling environment for establishments to function, entrepreneurship to flourish and this is precisely what the Modi government has been doing by pushing self-employment," he added.
The leaked report recorded unemployment rate of 6.1 percent in 2017-18, giving the opposition Congress ammunition to attack and pushing the NDA government in defensive mode.
Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday said it was time for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to go as he had failed to keep his 2014 promise of adding two crore jobs every year, and called the unemployment rate a “national disaster”.
Two independent members of the National Statistical Commission had resigned this week after the government allegedly failed to publish the report that was prepared last month. The report is still not public.
This was the first survey on employment by a government agency after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes in November 2016.
The Periodic Labour Force Survey is the first annual household survey of the National Sample Survey Office and data was collected between July 2017 and June 2018.
Documents reviewed by the Business Standard showed that unemployment rate was at its highest since the 1972-73 period, from when the employment data is comparable. In comparison, the unemployment rate stood at 2.2% in 2011-12, during the United Progressive Alliance’s second term, according to the survey.
The report showed that the unemployment rate among the youth was at a higher level compared to previous years and “much higher compared to that in the overall population”.
The rate of unemployment among men in rural areas between the ages of 15 and 29 years jumped to 17.4 percent in 2017-18 compared to 5 percent in 2011-12. The unemployment rate among women in rural areas stood at 13.6 percent in 2017-18 compared to 4.8 percent in 2011-12, according to the survey.
Unemployment among youth in urban areas was higher than in rural areas – 18.7 percent for men and 27.2 percent for women in 2017-18.
More among the educated were jobless in 2017-18 than they were in 2004-05. For educated women in rural areas, unemployment was at 17.3 percent in 2017-18 compared to 9.7 percent-15.2 percent during 2004-05 to 2011-12. For educated men in rural areas, the unemployment rose to 10.5 percent in 2017-18 compared to 3.5 percent to 4.4 percent during 2004-05 to 2011-12.
The labour force participation rate, which is the proportion of population working or seeking jobs, declined from 39.5 percent in 2011-12 to 36.9 percent in 2017-18. The labour force participation has been declining since 2004-05. The dip was at a higher pace in 2017-18 compared to 2011-12, but at a lower speed than what was witnessed in 2009-10.
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