Job generation is among the foremost challenges facing the Indian economy and the government has failed to address changes in employment, Citigroup Research said, adding Asia’s third-largest economy needs greater job creation to accommodate new entrants to the labour market each year.
India needs to create about 1.2 crore jobs every year over the next decade to absorb the number of new entrants to the labour market, according to an estimate by Citi. However, based on the 7% growth rate, the country is able to generate only around 80–90 lakh jobs a year, according to the report.
That’s a deficit of around 30–40 lakh jobs a year.
The government rebutted this claim on Monday, stating that Citi’s research failed to account for the comprehensive and positive employment data available from official sources such as the Periodic Labour Force Survey and the Reserve Bank of India’s KLEMS data.
KLEMS is an acronym for K (capital), L (labour), E (energy), M (material), and S (services), all key inputs and sources of economic activities and growth.
According to these data, India has generated more than 8 crore employment opportunities from 2017–18 to 2021–22, the government said. This translates to an average of over 2 crore in employment per year, despite the global economy being hit by the Covid-19 pandemic during 2020–21, it said.
Here’s what the government says: