13 Million Jobs Created In 2017: Member Of Economic Advisory Council

Twenty-two million jobs have been created during 2014-2017, with 13 million new jobs in 2017 alone, according to a report. Surjit Bhalla, a member of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council (PMEAC) and the author of the report, says that the goals of the report are to gauge job creation in 2017 in the absence of a comprehensive public survey, and to predict how many new jobs are needed every year.

The report goes on to say that reforms under the current government, like the MUDRA scheme and the boost in road construction activity have pushed up employment. It goes on to claim that 1.7 to 3 million jobs could have been created by the construction sector alone in financial year 2017-18.

Mr. Bhalla rejected the common assumption that 10 to 12 million new jobs are needed annually in India, stating that these figures are dated and were last correct in 2004. According to the report, only 7.5 million new jobs were required in 2017 to maintain the unemployment percentage.

The report draws on two kinds of government surveys and a private survey for its analysis. The private survey, carried out by the Center for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) and the Bombay Stock Exchange, found that only 1.7 million new jobs were created in 2017, in contrast to the new report's figure of 13 million. Mr Bhalla has criticised this survey and claimed that there are "mega inconsistencies" in the CMIE survey.

The report also looks into the drop in women's labour force participation rate that has been reported by the CMIE. It states that half the drop in women's jobs is "artificial" as it has been caused by women pursuing education, and the the drop runs parallel to a similar drop in men's labour force participation rate. The reasons behind these drops are under study.