Despite economic growth, jobs remain biggest headache for Narendra Modi govt

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Hiring in India’s formal sector is likely to stay muted in the next three months of 2018, a survey showed, suggesting Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s failure to create tens of millions of jobs for the country’s youth.

A survey of 5,110 employers conducted by Manpower Group found 16 percent planned to increase their workforce in the quarter ending September. It includes companies in the formal sector, who employ 10 or more workers. Data on India’s informal labor market, which employs the majority of its workers, is limited.

Once the data is adjusted to allow for seasonal variation, the outlook stands at 17 percent, remaining relatively stable when compared with the previous quarter, and improving by 2 percentage points in comparison with the third quarter of 2017.

“Major trends that will drive recruitment in 2018 in India are diversity, automated recruitment, virtual reality, remote working options among other. The HR Industry is also trending towards a marketing approach to hiring to attract the right talent,” AG Rao, group managing director of ManpowerGroup India said in a statement on Tuesday.

Modi won the 2014 election promising to revitalise the economy and create strong jobs growth. While India’s growth has accelerated at the fastest pace among the world’s biggest economies, the government is to deliver on jobs before the country heads for elections in 2019.

Despite the government’s professed emphasis on job creation, the country’s unemployment rate has seen an uptick since the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party began its term in May 2014.

The unemployment rate in 2015-16 was 5 percent of the labor force, up from 4.9 percent in 2013-14, according to a government survey.

As nearly 15 million join the workforce every year, India still has a long way to go before the world’s fastest-growing major economy can cope with the country’s demographic bulge.

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow