THE TRIPPLE JUMLAS – THE JOBS RHETORIC

While campaigning for the 2014 general elections, Mr Narendra Modi promised to the country that if elected, he would create 2 crore jobs per year. It’s been almost four years since then and the time is ripe to seek answers from the Prime Minister.

The Economic Survey, tabled in the Parliament a day before the Union Budget was presented has this to say about employment:

“Providing India’s labour force with good high productivity jobs will remain a pressing challenge.”

If the government has taken no concrete measure to address this challenge in the last fours, what has it been doing in office?

The curious aspect is that the economic survey avoids mentioning any number on jobs whereas the Finance Minister chose to quote a private research paper of two individuals in his budget speech. A closer look at the publicly available numbers makes the whole thing even more interesting.

The Table below shows the increase in number of registered contributing members of the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) against the GDP growth (The increase signifies the number of jobs added in the economy).

Year	GDP Growth (In %)	Increase in Contributing Members of EPFO
2014 – 15	7.5	23, 00, 000
2015 – 16	8.2	27, 00, 000
2016 – 17	7.1	75, 00, 000
2017 – 18	6.5^*	70, 00, 000

^*CSO estimate

Any economics student would know that fall in GDP implies reduction in job creation. But the data above shows that even though GDP is declining from 2016-17 there is an increase in the number of contributing members of EPFO. This must be the only country in the world where GDP decreases but employment increases! If this is true, then all that we have to do if we are to create jobs is to reduce our GDP!

In one of his recent interviews Mr Modi was asked about job creation and he made a reference to those selling pakodas while answering that question. No one denies that selling pakodas is an honourable self-employment, but it is not a job! A job is defined by the ILO as employment that is certain, regular, and reasonably secure. What the Prime Minister must answer is this: What is his definition of a job? How many ILO-defined jobs has he created? And, just like he piloted the celebration of International Yoga Day, would he also recommend to the ILO to recognise selling pakodas as a job?

As on early February, the vacancies in paramilitary forces were as follows:

Force	Vacancies
CRPF	24,450
BSF	10,176
CISF	15,232
SSB	18,767
ITBP	7,540
Assam Rifles	2,279
Total	78,444

Source: Rajya Sabha records

In our capital Delhi, which the Central Government administers through the LG the vacancies in government jobs is appalling:

Department	Vacancies
Prisons	1,087
Fire	1,541
Revenue	863
Education	10,312
Health Services	555
PWD	1,043
Services	5,923
Guru Tej Bahadur Hospital	817
Lok Nayak Hospital	1,022
Total	36,657

Source: Rajya Sabha records

Instead of rubbing salt on people’s wounds by telling them that selling pakodas is a job or other such things why doesn’t the Prime Minister fill such vacancies? Will he do it? Well, let us wait and watch.

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