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Congress leader Jairam Ramesh.
– Photo: Amar Ojala
expansion
Congress returned on Monday the government’s claim that eight million employment opportunities were created in the country between 2021 and 2024. The government also said that 6.2 million new customers have been added to the EPFO ​​database. Congress also dismissed this claim as a half-truth and said that no amount of rhetoric could change the fact that jobs declined between 2014-2024.
Congress rejected the central bank’s figures
Congress General Secretary Jairam Ramesh said he was trying to find solace in his economic record amid the ‘pivots and scams’ of this “wobbly” government in recent months. Jairam Ramesh said that “the government presented another figure through rhetoric, that added 6.2 million new members to the employees’ provident fund organization database between September 2017 and March 2024. This claim was first discovered from the Reserve Bank’s KLEMS (K: Capital, L: Labor, E: Energy, M: Materials and S: Services) data and we refuted this claim in July himself.
Claim – the government calls employment in the unorganized sector an achievement.
Jairam Ramesh claimed that in its claim for eight million new jobs, the government ignored the quality and conditions of employment. He claimed that a large part of the ‘increase in employment’ is from women doing unorganized housework and the government registered this as employment. The Congress leader said the share of wage and organized employment in the labor market has declined and people are working as laborers or in low-productivity informal sectors such as agriculture, which are captured in the central bank’s KLEMS data.
In support of his claim, Jairam Ramesh claimed that the increase in employment during the Corona epidemic points in this direction because at that time a large part of the economy was closed and during 2020-2021, jobs in many sectors of formal importance increased by 12% and a lack of workers was observed. Whereas 1.8 million new jobs were created in the agricultural sector. In fact, due to the closure of factories and companies, people returned to their homes and engaged in agricultural activities in their homes, which were registered by the government as new jobs.
EPFO figures called juggling
The Congress leader said this shift towards low-productivity, low-wage jobs is an economic joke, but the government is presenting it as an achievement. Alleging that there is large-scale unemployment in the country, Jairam Ramesh said that the allegations leveled against EPFO ​​ignore the fact that EPFO ​​only monitors the organized sector, which is the main source of employment in the country for less than 10 percent. Also, now the EPFO ​​registration process has become easier. In such a situation, EPFO ​​members can now transfer their PF accounts while changing employers without making a final settlement. Also, many retired people who are not withdrawing their money in search of better return are also shown as employed in EPFO ​​data.
Jairam Ramesh called the government’s claims juggling data and said that it is true that the unemployment rate in India is the highest in 45 years. The unemployment rate among mature teenagers is 42 percent. Jairam Ramesh said that this crisis was created by the government itself and the reason for it was Tughlaqi decrees like demonetisation, hasty decision to implement GST, unplanned corona lockdown and increased imports from China. According to him, at the same time the government’s economic policy is in favor of some large business groups, because of which competition is eliminated and inflation is affected.
(Except translation, this story has not been edited by achinews staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
source link https://www.amarujala.com/india-news/congress-jairam-ramesh-said-jobs-decrease-in-last-ten-years-no-spin-doctoring-change-this-fact-amid-rbi-klems-2024-09-30
