Employment in India fell between 2014 and 2016 despite the government’s promise to create more jobs, according to the latest data from a research project supported by the Reserve Bank of India.
The KLEMS India database – a study analysing the productivity of the Indian economy – found that employment in India reduced by 0.1% in the financial year 2015-’16 and by 0.2% in 2014-’15.
The sectors that were hit the worst both years were agriculture, forestry and fishing, mining, manufacture of food products, textiles, leather products, paper, transport equipment and trade.
The data showed that jobs had declined even though the economy grew in those years, Mint reported. A comparison of the data showed that the employment rate was much higher in the 1980s and early 1990s, when the growth of gross domestic product – the value of goods and services produced in a country in a year – was lower.
While many people moved out of agriculture owing to poor productivity in the sector between 2014 and 2016, they were not able to find employment in other sectors, the data showed. Those who did, moved into construction, but the productivity of this sector was also on the decline, the database showed.
This is not the first study pointing to slumping job opportunities in India. In February, Labour Bureau’s Quarterly Employment Survey said that the manufacturing sector reported a loss of 87,000 jobs between April and June 2017. In 2016, this figure was 12,000.
The survey had looked at data from eight sectors – education, health, construction, trade, accommodation and restaurant, information technology, manufacturing and transport – and found that 64,000 jobs had been added since the previous quarter – the slowest rate of increase in three quarters.
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