Government Issues Rebuttal To Citigroup's Research Report On Employment In India

The recent research report by Citigroup on employment in India, which forecasts that the country will struggle to create sufficient employment opportunities, even with a 7% growth rate, fails to account for the comprehensive and positive employment data available from official sources such as the Periodic Labour Force Survey and the Reserve Bank of India's KLEMS data, the government said in a press release on Monday.

"The Ministry of Labour and Employment strongly rebuts such reports, which do not analyse all official data sources available in the public domain," it said.

Citi, in a report published previously, estimated that India will need to create about 12 million jobs a year over the next decade to absorb the number of new entrants to the labour market. However, based on a growth rate of 7%, the country can only generate about 8–9 million jobs a year, it said.

Employment Data For India

According to PLFS and the RBI's KLEMS data, India has generated more than 8 crore (80 million) employment opportunities from 2017–18 to 2021–22, the release said. This translates to an average of over 2 crore (20 million) in employment per year, despite the fact that the world economy was hit by the Covid-19 pandemic during 2020–21, it said.

The Annual PLFS report depicts an improving trend in labour market indicators related to the labour force participation rate, worker population Ratio and unemployment rate for persons of age 15 years and older during 2017–18 to 22–23. For instance, the WPR has increased from 46.8% in 2017–18 to 56% in 2022–23, the government said. Similarly, labour force participation has also risen in the country from 49.8% in 2017–18 to 57.9% in 2022–23, along with a decline in the unemployment rate from 6% in 2017–18 to a low of 3.2% in 2022–23.

The PLFS data shows that during the last five years, more employment opportunities have been generated as compared to the number of people joining the labour force, resulting in a consistent reduction in the unemployment rate, it said. This is a clear indicator of the positive impact of government policies on employment, according to it.

"Contrary to the report, which suggests a dire employment scenario, the official data reveals a more optimistic picture of the Indian job market," the government said.

It also cited the addition of new subscribers to the EPFO data—an indicator of formal employment—and additions in the National Pension System under the central and state governments as indicators of rising employment.