CLAIMS

In the 2014 Lok Sabha campaign, Modi promised 2 crore jobs every year if he was elected.

On 27^th April, 2019, Modi said on TV that ‘EPFO figures show that almost 2.5 crore jobs had been added every year’

TRUTH

In 2016-17, there were about 41.27 crore employed persons in the country spanning across all kinds of jobs – from agriculture to industry to services, in rural or urban areas. In 2022-23, the number has dipped to 40.57 crores – a net loss of over 70 lakh jobs.

The extent of unemployment in the country and the desperation of unemployed youth was graphically brought home in mid-February when the UP government announced that 60,000 police personnel were to be recruited.  More than 48 lakh young men and women thronged the examination centers, traveling by over-crowded trains and buses, sleeping on railway platforms. They somehow appeared for the examination only to learn that the paper had been ‘leaked’.  They had to protest for days to force the government to announce that the examination would be held again.  What these young people have undergone in the process is unimaginable.

Every year, an estimated 80 lakh persons join the workforce as they come of age. In a situation where the total number of employed is decreasing, these new entrants are being added to the unemployed.

Joblessness is about 7.6 per cent in 2022-23. That means about 3 crore persons have been unemployed. This does not include the catastrophic pandemic years when unemployment went up to over 25 per cent.

To cover up for this failure, Modi and his ministers often trot out misleading figures and statements to show that jobs are being created. For example, one pet theme has been enrollment in the provident fund scheme, which has been recorded as going up substantially. The claim that this represents fresh jobs being created is untenable because many existing employees have been registered after the government started giving financial incentive to employers for this. Also, a Supreme Court judgement on compulsory enrolment of contract workers led to a spurt.

Another wild claim is that Mudra Yojana loans given to 4.1 crore persons between 2015-16 and 2022-23 indicates job creation. However, average loan amount is just Rs 55,622! How this amount can help a small business owner to hire new workers is beyond imagination.

Modi had also promised that his policies would shift people from agriculture to more secure, better paying jobs in manufacturing or service. He promised that the contribution of manufacturing to GDP would go up from 17 per cent to 25 per cent.  The truth is that the contribution of manufacturing to GDP shrank to just 13 per cent by 2020 and has only now, slowly, come back to 17 per cent.

The job crisis has forced people to go back to the villages to try and earn what little they can from an agrarian sector that is over-burdened and collapsing. 46 per cent of India’s workforce is working in agriculture or related activities. Agricultural labourers work at a pittance, and that too seasonally. All these are counted as “employed” although it is really hidden unemployment.

In 2014-15, about 5.8 crore persons worked in the rural jobs guarantee scheme (MGNREGS). This number had jumped to 8.8 crore in 2022-23.  On an average they got only 50 days of work in a year and 237/- per day. This huge dependence on arduous, low-paying MGNREGS  is proof of the extent of the jobs crisis. Even this life-saving scheme is being starved of funds and the workers’ access to work and wages is being curtailed by imposing an Aadhar based payment system.

Women have been the worst sufferers. Their unemployment rate in rural areas is double that of men and triple in urban areas. Recently, figures have been released which claim that women’s work participation has increased but these are misleading.  Most of the increase is in ‘self-employed’ and ‘unpaid’ work by women who are forced to do multiple kinds of work in order to feed themselves and their families when prices are high, wages are low and jobs are just not available.

Nearly 10 lakh vacancies exist in central government controlled jobs ranging from police forces to universities, to hospitals and judiciary to banks. There is no recruitment being made here and to hide this massive failure, the PM has taken to handing out ‘appointment letters’ for some limited jobs which is a meaningless exercise.

A recent survey found that in 41 instances of paper leaks in examinations for 1.04 lakh vacancies in state government jobs, some 1.4 crore young applicants were affected – and most of them are still waiting for the process to be completed.

State governments – with the exception of Kerala – are also not filling vacancies.

Modi’s privatisation of education, health, various other services combined with the disinvestment of public sector enterprises has meant that not only have jobs reduced but also that contractual jobs – with low pay, no benefits and temporary appointment – have increased.

What should be done?

The government must boost public investment. It must provide support to:

• The farmers by guaranteeing MSP;
• To industrial workers through secure jobs and better wages; 
• To agricultural workers through guaranteed minimum wages and increased workdays and wages for MNREGA; 
• It must support the MSME sector which provides 65 per cent of employment in industry and protect the public sector;
• It must curtail the role of both foreign and domestic corporate monopolies.

The government must abandon its privatisation policy.  The private sector cannot provide solutions to the problems of people.

The desperation of the unemployed and the callousness of the government of India was revealed in the recent recruitment in mid-February of 10,000 construction workers for work in the war zone of Israel.  The recruits spoke openly of their compulsion to risk their lives in this way.  The government, on its part, did not even think it fit to see that their lives were insured.  The recruitment was done in the BJP-ruled State of UP.

Data Sources: CMIE; Census 2011; PLFS 2022-23, MOSPI; Mudra Yojana, Min of MSME; EPFO; Parliament Questions; Indian Express.

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Published by Communist Party of India (Marxist)