In 2015, India created 130,000 jobs in eight industrial sectors, according to new government data, a 68% slowdown from the 400,000 jobs created in 2014, with a similar number in 2013.
The data released on July 20, 2016 to the Lok Sabha, the lower house of Parliament, refer to the formal sector, which accounts for 10% of all employment in India, but it is a marker of employment prospects for the million Indians who seek jobs every month, or 12 million every year.
The government’s data include textiles, gems & jewellery and the information technology/business process outsourcing.
Textiles continued to be the largest creator of jobs, with 499,000 jobs added over the last three years. The pace of employment, however, slowed 75% over these years.
The IT/BPO sector continued to be the second largest job creator in the formal economy, with 378,000 jobs added over the last three years. The transport and handloom/powerloom sectors reported the largest job losses–24,000 and 18,000, respectively–over the same period.
Jobs were either unavailable or were not meeting aspirations, fuelling unrest across India, even as a failing education system created thousands of “unemployable” graduates,IndiaSpend reported in February 2016.
The official unemployment rate in India is below 5%, disguising widespread under-employment and partial employment.
India will need to generate 280 million jobs between now and 2050, the year when the working-age population (15 to 64) will peak, IndiaSpend reported in May 2016, amid indications that the country’s demographic dividend could be at the cusp of disaster.
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Feature image courtesy maskmanufacturing.com
