The experts tell us that the unemployment rate is climbing but the number of people seeking jobs is falling. According to one erudite estimate, 400 million Indians had jobs last month compared with 406 million a year ago. The Centre for Monitoring of Indian Economy’s report, Unemployment Rate in India, claims that the number of people with jobs declined from 407.9 million in 2017 the number to 397 million last year. India has been struggling to generate employment for many years. The Labour Bureau declared last April that India had the world’s largest unemployed population.
Another report prepared by the Azim Premji University stated that India’s 2018 unemployment rate was the highest in the last 20 years. What happens to those who are unemployed? Logically, they should be crowding employment exchanges, knocking at doors for jobs, begging in the streets. But India’s gross domestic product continues to grow at an impressive 7 per cent or more.
This paradox of poverty co-existing with prosperity provoked a recent acrimonious exchange between Rahul Gandhi and the Bharatiya Janata Party. “Unemployment is at its highest in 45 yrs…6.5 Cr youth are jobless in 2017-18 alone. Time for NoMo2Go,” tweeted a jubilant Mr Gandhi.
The BJP’s rejoinder “EPFO’s (Employees Provident Fund Organisation’s) real data shows sharp increase in jobs, created in just the last 15 months. Only a man who hasn’t ever held a proper job and is totally jobless can peddle such #FakeNews,” was both cheap and begged the question.
As a distinguished economist, Manmohan Singh might have been able to solve the riddle, especially. But the former prime minister was also scathing about unemployment at a book launch last September. “Our youth are desperately waiting for the promised two crore jobs” he said.
“Employment growth rate has been declining in last four years. People aren’t impressed with the figures being put out by the Modi government to justify creation of a large number of jobs.” Dr Singh was dismissive about the impact of “flagship programmes” like “Make in India” and “Stand Up India” and also argued that small and marginal enterprises had not benefited significantly from ease of doing business schemes.
On another occasion he spoke of “the suicides of farmers and frequent farmer agitation” reflecting structural imbalances in the economy which call for serious in-depth analysis and political will to address them. “The jobless growth slipping into job-loss growth, together with rural indebtedness and urban chaos have made the growing aspirational youths restless.”
According to the CMIE, the number of unemployed in India increased by nearly 11 million in 2018. This increase, the report says, is India’s worst in the last 27 months. India’s unemployment rate rose to 7.2 per cent in February, the highest since September 2016, and up from 5.9 per cent in February 2018. As was only to be expected, this has already proved to be grist to the opposition’s mills. In fact, Dr Singh’s comments were made at what was an informal gathering of anti-BJP forces.
People’s livelihood depends on jobs. West Bengal’s Left Front would not have been so ignominiously thrown out on the dust bin of history if it hadn’t failed the revolution of rising expectations. Jyoti Basu and Buddhadev Bhattacharjee presided over equitable land reforms and a vigorous village-based panchayati democracy.
But the young men and women who graduated from this process then expected white collar employment to sustain their social aspirations. They were bitterly disappointed because the Left Front failed to attract investment in manufacturing. The one signal success it looked forward to – Tata’s car factory – was snatched away from under Mr Bhattacharjee’s nose by the turbulent Mamata Banerjee.
Learning from this and other examples, the Centre has always been very cagey about unemployment statistics. Official figures no longer invite much respect. But even the government’s own National Sample Survey acknowledged that unemployment, which was a mere 2.2 per cent in 2011-12, had soared to a 45-year high of 6.1 per cent in 2017-18.
It was higher that year in urban areas (7.8 per cent) from where the BJP draws it main strength than in the countryside, where it stood at 5.3 per cent. No wonder the authorities tried their best to suppress the NSS findings until they were leaked to the media.
Eyeing the 50 per cent of India’s population that is below the age of 25, and the more than 65 per cent below the age of 35, Narendra Modi made job creation his main election promise. Since the average age of an Indian is expected to be 29 years in 2020, compared to 37 for China and 48 for Japan, Mr Modi must have felt confident he was winning the future. Elections since then have demonstrated that the muscular nationalism he preaches, his vituperative rhetoric and aggressive rejoinder to a Pakistan that abets terrorism do appeal to young people.
Young Indians have every right, therefore, to feel let down. The unemployment rate for young males in the 15-29 age group spiralled from 8.1 per cent in 2011-12 to 18.7 per cent in 2017-18. The increase for girls was even more dramatic, shooting up from 13.1 per cent to 27.2 per cent during the same period.
The biggest brunt was witnessed in the rural areas, which accounted for 84 per cent of all the jobs — 9.1 million — lost. Most victims were uneducated wage labourers, agricultural labourers and small traders, mostly below 40 years of age or above 59 years. At the end of 2018, unemployment stood at 7.4 per cent. Tripura followed by Haryana had the highest number of unemployed people. In Tripura 28.8 per cent of the population was unemployed while it was 24.4 per cent in Haryana.
The CMIE report says nearly 11 million people lost their jobs last year because of the demonetisation of high value notes in late 2016 and the chaotic launch of a new goods and services tax in 2017 which hit millions of small businesses. The government claims not to have any information on this. In fact, it is in denial all along.
But that doesn’t mean that the spectre of mass unemployment either haunts the country or that it will sweep the BJP out of office. True, Mr Modi has lost Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhatisgarh, but demonetisation didn’t affect his triumph in Uttar Pradesh in April 2017. Nor prevent its emergence as the largest single party in Karnataka’s May 2018 election.
All this is understandable since investment has declined, bank credit is increasing very slowly and exports are stagnating. But why, then, are there fewer people looking for jobs? One can only think of the saying attributed to the British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”
Sunanda K Datta-Ray is the author of several books and a regular media columnist.
