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India has seen jobless growth, says top
adviser
Monday November 14, 2011 08:59:30 AM,
Amit Agnihotri, IANS
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New Delhi: India may
have grown at over eight percent, but a top adviser has expressed
concern over the "stagnant employment situation", saying the
country with 40 million unemployed people witnessed "jobless
growth" during the Eleventh Five Year Plan period from 2007-08 to
2011-12.
"The only explanation for an almost stagnant employment situation
is simply that not enough jobs are available in the economy, even
with an eight percent plus growth rate," National Advisory Council
member N.C. Saxena told IANS in an interview.
"The Eleventh Five Year Plan witnessed jobless growth," he said.
Saxena, a retired bureaucrat, said the government's argument that
more young people are now attending educational institutions fails
to explain "why there are still 40 million unemployed people in
the country (according to the Current Daily Status figures of
National Sample Survey Organisation 66th round), who should have
got the jobs if the economy was creating them."
He has flagged the issue for consideration of NAC chairperson
Sonia Gandhi, who also heads the Congress-led United Progressive
Alliance.
Pointing out a flaw in policy implementation, Saxena said "the
government could create only one million jobs against a target of
50 million jobs during the Eleventh Plan period and has now set a
near impossible target of creating 60 million jobs during the
Twelfth Five Year Plan (2012-13 to 2016-17).
According to Saxena, a former member secretary with the Planning
Commission, the number of actual workers during 2007-08 to
2011-12, when the Indian economy was growing rapidly, increased
just by a million.
In contrast, the number of people in the age group 15-59 years
increased by about 50 million during the period.
He pointed to a lacuna in the demographic dividend theory of the
government - that the pool of people in the working age group can
be used productively in an economy, saying the number of people in
the labour force actually declined from 470.1 million in 2004-05
to 469.9 million people in 2009-10.
"This means the Plans completely failed as there has not been any
significant increase in employment opportunities. Against this,
the number of non-workers in the age group 15-59 years soared,"
said Saxena.
Suggesting a relook at policy implementation, Saxena further said
"one has to examine whether macro policies in India have been
pro-employment and pro-poor in the post reform period".
Offering a solution, Saxena expressed hope that "the National
Council for Skill Development under the prime minister makes skill
development among youth a national priority."
Besides the creation of new jobs, he said, the government should
also aim at improving the quality of employment in the unorganised
sector in which nearly 92 percent of the work force is engaged.
(Amit Agnihotri can be contacted at amit.a@ians.in)
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