INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Union Minister Nitin Gadkari’s self-goal on the lack of enough employment opportunities has revived the debate over the jobless growth in
India.
The government has slipped into a damage control mode after Gadkari’s foot-in-mouth comment on Sunday that there are hardly any new
jobs in the market, let alone reservation for the Marathas.
The Opposition parties have latched on to the Union minister’s admission on
the NDA government’s failure to create quality jobs, saying that he may have called the NDA government’s bluff on the rise in employment
opportunities.
The political dogfight apart, the fact remains that new jobs are far and few between
And when it comes to the organised sector, the picture gets grimmer, with just about seven million new jobs being added in the past one
year.
Gadkari may be blaming it all on the advent of technology in banks and the government’s fiscal constraints, but that is hardly any
excuse.
On ET NOW’s India Development Debate, political party leaders and economists discussed the Modi government’s track record on
employment generation: Here are some key takeaways:
PANEL VIEWSHAINA NCSPOKESPERSON, BJP
When Nitin Gadkari talks about Maratha agitation
the demand of the Maratha community that there should be reservations when it comes to government jobs when it comes to education
institutes that’s when he says, “In the government sector there are so many jobs
So how we’ll create more jobs within the government” That’s the area of contention
A lot of unskilled labour doesn’t come under the gamut of your data base.
SANJAY JHASPOKESPERSON, CONGRESS
There is huge negative social
cost if youths remain unemployed
When Mr Modi says I will create 2 crore jobs, we must take his comment seriously
So to now change the yardstick is disingenuous
If GDP grows at a good rate, jobs will grow
But you raised GDP by changing the formula
India is becoming a gig economy but we don’t have social security measures
If you find a reverse migration happening and demands for NREGA going up then job crisis is for real.
GURCHARAN DASAUTHOR AND COMMENTATOR,
FORMER CEO, PG INDIA
In India, we still do not have good labour statistics
Today, the fight between the BJP and the Congress on how many jobs are being created is a chimera fight because we just don’t know
India's problem is not unemployment; our problem is under-employment
So, it's correct to say that ‘achhe din’ that was promised have not come
Reality is that the government made an effort, but our biggest failure is that ‘achhe din’ type of jobs require an export push that has
not been there in the past four years.
R JAGANNATHANEDITORIAL DIRECTOR, SWARAJYA MAGAZINE
Governments are enablers to the extent that
government keeps enabling the economy to create jobs, any government can create jobs
Automation is picking up across industries
Economy’s job-creation potential has been de-linked from growth
Third thing is that sectors which actually create jobs are not booming in the private sector part of it – construction, real estate these
are seriously down because you had GST, demonetisation the general slowdown
We should see some revival as we go ahead towards the election but it will be not enough to take care of the thing.
HIMANSHUASSOCIATE
PROFESSOR, JNU
There is a kind of dishonesty when you say data is not there
Why were there no surveys The problem is much more serious than what is projected
It’s not a question of unemployment; it’s much more serious, related to poverty, starvation deaths
GST and demonetisation have a spillover effect
There is a severe crisis in rural areas
The demand of the rural economy has to be revived
Unless we reset the economy these incremental measures like Skill India will not help.
