How come India saw an increase in employment during COVID, just when the ILO said East and South East Asia saw employment stagnate?

In reality, do the schemes of the government create new jobs?

The latest effort by a government economist has been to claim that on an average basis, an “unprecedented number” of jobs are being created under the Narendra Modi government. But their arguments do not hold up.

The government has been using Employee Provident Fund Organization data to suggest that new jobs are being created without realising there are inherent fallacies in using such data to arrive at such a conclusion.

The whole purpose of making the NMPI the poverty indicator for India, while consumption expenditure surveys were not done for eight years from 2014 to 2022, is part of a political strategy.

GOI efforts to spin a jobs growth narrative has meant the following: it is not willing to recognise a glaring problem, and hence no concrete efforts are needed  to change economic policy to make the growth pattern more labour-intensive.

Has the ‘multidimensional’ index been able to capture the full picture? Unfortunately not.

It is fairly easy to understand why real wages have either stagnated or fallen over the last five years. The period 2017-18 was the year following demonetisation in late 2016, which had caused widespread damage to large parts of the economy.

While the government would like India’s citizens to believe that the country came out of the exogenous COVID shock in a V-shaped recovery, most economists outside the government have repeatedly argued that what India experienced has been a K-shaped rebound, not recovery.

The number of poor fell sharply during this earlier period, and has risen in recent years.

If governments wish to raise employment levels in formal sector enterprises and prepare school leavers for the world of work, it is critical that systems of internships and apprenticeships, formally approved and mandated, are encouraged. 

The government, in general, does not seem to recognise that India has seen a crisis in aggregate demand.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi claimed recently in Uttar Pradesh's Prayagraj that the situation of women in the state has bettered under the BJP rule of last seven years, but the numbers say otherwise.

Employment trends are dismal under the 'double engine government' of Modi and Adityanath. Several claims made in ads do not appear to hold up.

Adolescent girls, who had gotten educated, now face a bleak future, as the unemployment rate has risen even further after the pandemic.

The failure of the private sector in vaccine administration shows why the Union government should procure 100% of the COVID-19 vaccines and adopt a policy of uniform pricing.

Whose needs are greater: that of the Centre or the private buyer? How did the Centre arrive at such an arrangement?

The allocation of small cash transfers, depending on the level of deprivation and vulnerability of different groups and households, delivered in a phased and graded manner will be fiscally prudent and effective.

Manufacturing jobs actually fell in absolute terms from 58.9 million in 2011-12 to 48.3 million in 2015-16.

Manufacturing jobs actually fell in absolute terms from 58.9 million in 2011-12 to 48.3 million in 2015-16.