The Congress on Monday (September 30, 2024) dismissed as “half-truths” the federal government’s assertions of making eight crore employment opportunities between 2021 and 2024 and 6.2 crore web subscribers becoming a member of the EPFO database, and mentioned no “spin-doctoring” can take away from the truth that 2014-24 has seen “jobless development”.
Congress Normal Secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh mentioned that amidst the “U-turns and scandals” which have marked the previous couple of months of this “tottering” Authorities, “the non-biological PM and his drum beaters have tried to seek out some solace of their financial document, claiming to have created eight crore employment alternatives between 2021 and 2024”.
“This declare initially emerged from the RBI KLEMS information, which we had earlier countered on July fifteenth, 2024. The Authorities’s spin docs have now mustered one other statistic – that of 6.2 crore web subscribers becoming a member of the Workers’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) database between September 2017 and March 2024. Each claims are primarily based on half-truths,” he mentioned in a press release.
To justify its declare of eight crore new jobs, the federal government adopts an expansive definition of employment, with out registering the standard and circumstances of employment, Mr. Ramesh argued.
A big a part of the claimed “employment growth” is recording unpaid family work completed by ladies as “employment”, he mentioned, including that it’s not new job creation. The ’80 million new jobs’ headline additionally elides dialogue on the standard of jobs, Mr. Ramesh mentioned.
Amidst the poor financial local weather, the share of salaried, formal employment in the labour market has decreased, he mentioned and identified that employees are shifting to low-productivity casual and agricultural jobs, which KLEMS is capturing as jobs created.
“Because of this the KLEMS information exhibits a rise in employment through the COVID-19 pandemic years, when giant sections of the financial system totally shut down. Whereas essential sectors like training noticed 12 lakh fewer jobs in 2020-2021, a whopping 1.8 crore ‘jobs’ had been ‘created’ in agriculture,” he mentioned.
Thus, manufacturing facility employees, academics, miners, and so on. who returned dwelling throughout COVID-19 and needed to return to farming and agricultural labour are registered as a “job created” in agriculture, Mr. Ramesh argued.
This shift to low-productivity, poorly paid jobs is an financial travesty, which the federal government is touting as an achievement, the Congress chief mentioned.
“Lastly, within the absence of a Inhabitants Census since 2011, the KLEMS statisticians assumed a inhabitants stage to reach at their projections. A number of economists have indicated that the inhabitants estimate used was too giant, leading to an overestimation of jobs created,” Mr. Ramesh mentioned.
He additional mentioned the Authorities cites the addition of 6.2 crore web subscribers within the EPFO database to indicate document employment development, with out revealing the total image.
EPFO solely tracks the organised sector which is lower than 10 per cent of complete employment, he mentioned.
“The Supreme Court docket verdict in 2020 required the EPFO to incorporate contractual employees at any institution which employs greater than 20 individuals. A considerable variety of employees who had been already employed at the moment are being mirrored in EPFO information – these will not be new jobs created,” Mr. Ramesh mentioned.
“A part of the online improve in EPFO has to do with ease of registration – the method is now on-line, freed from price, and hassle-free, with out requiring a go to to the EPFO workplace. Subscribers can now switch their PF accounts whereas altering employers, with out having to submit a declare for last settlement,” he mentioned.
Institutions with 20 or extra workers come underneath the purview of the EPF act, Ramesh mentioned and identified that corporations which transfer from 19 to twenty workers in a single yr will instantly seem within the EPFO information as 20 new “jobs” though web job creation is a single job.
“Many retirees don’t withdraw their belongings from the EPFO as a result of it affords enticing returns – they’re captured as being employed in EPFO information,” Mr. Ramesh mentioned.
“No matter statistical jugglery they have interaction in, the reality stays: India’s unemployment charge at this time is the best it has been in 45 years, with the unemployment charge for graduate youth at 42%. This disaster is of the Authorities’s personal making, brought on by the decimation of job creating MSMEs by means of the Tughlakian demonetisation, a unexpectedly rushed by means of GST, an unplanned COVID-19 lockdown, and rising imports from China,” Mr. Ramesh mentioned.
The ultimate straw has been the PM’s financial coverage of favouring just a few giant enterprise teams, which is destroying competitors and impacting inflation as properly, he mentioned.
“No spin-doctoring can take away from this truth: 2014-24 has seen JOBLOSS development,” Mr. Ramesh added.
Printed – September 30, 2024 11:52 am IST
