Government claim of eight crore new jobs is data jugglery, says Congress

Centre included even unpaid household work in its employment data, says Jairam Ramesh

Dismissing the Union government’s assertion of creating eight crore employment opportunities between 2021 and 2024 as a “half-truth”, the Congress on Monday claimed that no “spin-doctoring can take away the fact that 2014-24 has seen jobloss growth”.

In a statement, Congress General Secretary (communications) Jairam Ramesh said, “Amidst the u-turns and scandals that have marked the last few months of this tottering government, the non-biological PM and his drumbeaters have tried to find some solace in their economic record, claiming to have created eight crore employment opportunities between 2021 and 2024”.

Mr. Ramesh said this claim initially emerged from the RBI KLEMS [K: Capital, L: Labour, E: Energy, M: Materials and S: Services] data, which Congress had earlier countered on July 15, 2024. “The government’s spin doctors have now mustered another statistic – that of 6.2 crore net subscribers joining the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) database between September 2017 and March 2024. Both claims are based on half-truths,” he added.

‘Overestimation’

The Congress leader said the government had adopted an expansive definition of employment – without registering the quality and circumstances of employment – that is recording unpaid household work done by women as “employment”. Many people employed in the formal sector shifted to the agriculture sector during the COVID pandemic, and these shifts to low-productivity informal and agricultural jobs were captured as jobs created in the KLEMS data, Mr. Ramesh claimed.

“Finally, in the absence of a Population Census since 2011, the KLEMS statisticians assumed a population level to arrive at their projections. Several economists have indicated that the population estimate used was too large, resulting in an overestimation of jobs created,” he said.

EPFO subscribers

Further, he argued that the government cited the addition of 6.2 crore net subscribers in the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) database to strengthen its claim on employment growth, without revealing the full picture.

He said the EPFO only tracked the organised sector, which was less than 10% of total employment. As per a Supreme Court verdict in 2020, any firm that employed 20 people, even contractual workers, should register with the EPFO. The Congress leader said whenever a firm went from 19 employees to 20 employees, every staffer, including the previously employed ones, came under the ambit of the EPFO.

“Whatever statistical jugglery they engage in, the truth remains: India’s unemployment rate today is the highest it has been in 45 years, with the unemployment rate for graduate youth at 42%. This crisis is of the government’s own making, caused by the decimation of job-creating MSMEs through the Tughlakian demonetisation, a hastily rushed through GST, an unplanned COVID-19 lockdown, and rising imports from China,” Mr. Ramesh said.

“The final straw has been the PM’s economic policy of favouring a few large business groups, which is destroying competition and impacting inflation as well. No spin-doctoring can take away from this fact: 2014-24 has seen JOBLOSS growth,” he added.

Published - September 30, 2024 11:52 am IST