(Bloomberg) -- India's new data on employment doesn't give a complete picture of the jobs situation in the country, according to Vidya Mahambare, an economist.
“It's a restricted number,” Mahambare, who teaches economics at the Great Lakes Institute of Management in Chennai, said in an interview to Bloomberg Television's Rishaad Salamat and Haslinda Amin.
“We really need to improve coverage and frequency of employment data in India, because finally economic growth is necessary but not a sufficient condition for prosperity,” she said.
About 30 million people were formally employed in the three months to June, a government survey showed Monday without giving comparable year-ago numbers. The data was collated from across nine economic sectors and covered enterprises with at least 10 employees.
Read: India Unveils New Employment Survey to Measure Economic Health
“Prosperity is finally going to depend on how many and what kind of jobs we generate,” Mahambare said. “For that, improving tracking of employment numbers is extremely important.”
Research by Mahambare and her colleagues shows one out of four educated adults in the age group of 20-29 were unemployed in India even before the pandemic.
“So educated unemployment is very high,” she said. “You are not inclined to take low paid jobs once educated.”
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