The number of people in jobs grew nearly 5% to 580 million in the financial year 2022-23, according to estimates being prepared by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), two persons aware of the development said.
The growth numbers, quite likely the outcome of the low base of the pandemic years, will form part of the RBI’s KLEMS database, based on an analysis of the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) data for the same period.
The KLEMS data, which provides insights into five key inputs in production—capital (K), labour (L), energy (E), materials (M) and services (S)—is expected to be released by the RBI in a couple of months.
KLEMS gives granular data on the inputs used in the production process and the output generated by an economy, while PLFS data provides information on the size and composition of the labour force, employment trends across different sectors and demographic groups, and unemployment rates.
KLEMS data follows the release of the PLFS data, which is usually published in October every year. Both sets of data are important for understanding different aspects of the economy and formulating appropriate policies.
According to the initial findings, the number of employed people grew by about 30 million from 553 million in 2021-22, according to the KLEMS database for that period, released last year.
Better show
India has seen a growth of 110 million jobs over the last 5 years, starting from 470 million in 2017-18, said the first among the two persons mentioned above.
As per KLEMS data for 2021-22, the highest 237 million jobs were created in agriculture and allied sectors, followed by 68 million jobs in construction and 63 million in trade.
The lowest 324,000 jobs were in industries involved in manufacturing refined petroleum products. The plastics industry generated 1.32 million jobs.
Pronab Sen, a noted economist and former country director for the India Programme of the International Growth Centre (IGC), said, “It is possible, considering that the previous year was the covid year, during which employment was seriously affected, leading to an increase in the unemployment rate to 9%, compared to our normal rate of 3%.”
Reopening post covid
“These are not new job opportunities, but rather the reopening of job opportunities that were closed during the pandemic. Therefore, it cannot be considered as momentum. Instead, it indicates that our economy is recovering from the covid year,” Sen said.
Prof N.R. Bhanumurthy, a noted economist and vice-chancellor of Dr B.R. Ambedkar School of Economics University, Bengaluru (BASE University), said, “The estimated increase of around 27 million between the two years is a significant number. This shows the number of jobs created during that period, which is important. This increase is significant because both the organized and unorganized sectors were severely affected during the covid pandemic.”
“This increase indicates that many activities have returned to normal, especially in contact-intensive sectors, which began reviving in 2022-23,” he said.
The PLFS data encompasses all sectors, covering a wide spectrum of employment types such as organized, unorganized, self-employed, and agricultural workers.
Holistic view
This comprehensive approach provides a holistic view of the employment landscape in the country, aiding policymakers and analysts in understanding the nuances of India’s workforce dynamics.
According to the KLEMS database, the total employment generation in India has surged to 553 million in 2021-22, compared to 471 million in 2017-18. This translates to 82 million more jobs.
Queries emailed to the spokespersons of the labour and employment ministry and RBI remained unanswered at press time.
Significant decline
The figures—reflecting returning jobs rather than new ones—come in the middle of a heated election debate on jobs between the government and the opposition.
In 2014, the NDA government came to power with the promise of creating 20 million job opportunities every year. As the government completes 10 years in power, the opposition has mounted its criticism of the government for failing to fulfilling this promise.
“It indicates an increase in employment by 3.1% in 2022-23 and this figure roughly translates to the creation of about 30 million employment opportunities in 2022-23,” the second person said.
The data also suggests a significant decline in the unemployment rate among female workers from 5.6% in 2017-18 to 2.9% in 2022-23. However, among the youth, including women, the unemployment rate has come down from 17.8% in 2017-18 to 10% in 2022-23.
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