Your cover story Where are the Jobs? is well-researched (February 18). I think a large part of the so-called job crisis is because of the demand for government jobs, not jobs per se. It’s clear that demonetisation and GST have added to unemployment, but the consensus on unemployment figures is divided and it looks like political motives are behind this. The CMIE report says 11 million jobs were lost in 2018 alone, while NSSO data say something else. RBI’s KLEMS database shows that around seven lakh jobs were lost in the textiles, textile products and leather sectors during 2014-16. It indicates a situation where the total number of vacancies is much less than the total number of job-seekers in India. The job crisis will surely be on the agenda in the 2019 general elections.
Vinod C. Dixit, On E-Mail
The job market is caught up in the rough trough of Modi’s many policies such as Make in India, Startup India and Skill India. These have hardly made any visible impact on the job situation around the country. Though initiated with the best of intentions, these schemes look hollow if the economy is snail-paced, keeping job-seekers jobless. Unemployment was overlooked in the interim budget. How painful! When jobs in the government sector are shrinking day by day and the private sector remains immobile, self-employment is the best foot forward. To cast aside employment pessimism, the ruling BJP-led NDA or any other aspiring party should come up with a genuine manifesto aiming to revive the job market.
Sanjeev Gupta, Perth, Australia
I read Empty Naukri Fair with much interest and have come to the following inferences. The suppressed NSSO report on employment in India bears some deeply worrying evidence apart from the rising unemployment rate. One such is the decline in the labour force participation rate, which measures the ratio of people employed or actively seeking employment to the total working age population. The ratio includes those already working in the formal or informal sector, including professionals and the self-employed. Hence, those not counted in the numerator would be the ones not seeking employment opportunities. These would include a discouraged working force, homemakers/housewives, and, of course, retired Indians and youngsters.
Approximately three-fourths of the male working age population is included in the labour force participation rate, while only a quarter of working age females are employed or actively seeking employment. This obviously is of concern since India is supposed to have a demographic dividend with a large proportion of youngsters entering the labour market. Among those who have some sort of employment, about 80 per cent are in the informal sector with hardly any job security or retirement benefits. Looking at the big picture in India, there is evidently an employment crisis, and the BJP-led government’s decision to put the report on hold won’t change that. Tweaking data will not change the grave situation. The Centre is sitting on a potentially inflammable social problem, which may flare into a major issue in future.
Ashim Kumar Chakraborty, Guwahati
The job situation in India is indeed grim. And yet we are touted to be the fastest growing economy in the world. The fact is there is a slowdown in non-agricultural jobs. Educated youth are turning to agriculture for sustenance, a retrogressive step. Meanwhile, government economists repeatedly deny the crisis. Unemployed youth are political fodder for various parties. But, instead of acknowledging the problem, we are busy defending an indefensible situation. We the citizens are lost somewhere in the labyrinth of figures.
Sangeeta Kampani, New Delhi
Cambridge English Dictionary defines job as “the regular work a person does to earn money”. But what we mean by job is regular service (naukri) in the public or private sector, and that’s a problem. Surely, there is a crisis of such jobs, but not of jobs as per the dictionary definition. PM Narendra Modi was much ridiculed by opposition parties for saying that those who sell pakodas outside offices and earn Rs 200 a day are not jobless. Former finance minister P. Chidambaram reacted by saying that if selling pakodas is a ‘job’, even begging is a job. Can there be a more silly comment? It was an insult to millions of self-employed people who earn their livelihood in so many ways, including selling pakodas or peanuts. They are all doing some job by the dictionary definition. Given the population of India, a situation where most of the unemployed get naukri is almost impossible, but the majority can be self-employed by their own resources, and the rest through government schemes that provide them finance on easy terms to start their work. The government has to play its role in the generation of self-employment.
M.C. Joshi, Lucknow
This refers to your interview with Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan (‘Only the frustrated don’t see the jobs’, February 18). There is no reliable data to back his assertion that “there are jobs in the country”, but my memories convince me that there was a lot more unemployment in the 1950s when I graduated. Only government jobs were available as the corporate sector was practically not there. Employable youth not averse to manual work do not remain unemployed, though they may feel underemployed. There are opportunities galore for enterprising persons. PM Modi once famously described the opportunities with the example of people frying pakoras by the roadside. But others look for cushy jobs, and when they don’t find any, the Opposition gets a chance to question the government’s performance on the job front. This government, which fired the imagination of young people by promising the creation of millions of jobs during the 2014 election campaign, has now made them suspicious by holding back the report on jobs prepared by a government agency.
M.N. Bhartiya, Goa
The cover story on paucity of jobs in India was timely (Empty Naukri Fair). Any inconvenient data on jobs is either ignored or edited out by the government. The fact that over three million jobs were lost due to demonetisation alone is swept under the carpet. Hasty GST implementation too shut down many SMEs due to compliance issues. Statistical skullduggery to paint a rosy picture of the economy will not change the reality.
Let us not forget that the erstwhile USSR had tried this for years, fooling its people and the world, and the consequences are well known. Indians have to be given accurate figures for how many jobs have been created and where, in BJP-ruled states or elsewhere. Our country is one of the fastest growing economies, but one that is not creating enough jobs, let alone good jobs. I wonder what use is the nation’s much-vaunted ‘demographic dividend’ if the government can’t create enough jobs, or if educational institutions can’t make youth employable. The aspirations of the youth need to be met soon. Instead of wasting millions on statues and temples, money should be spent on creating employment.
H.N. Ramakrishna, Bangalore
Who says no jobs; defend the PM hard enough on social media and you can be a certified troll.
Anil S., Pune
Your story on freedom fighters, the last of a fine generation, was really good (Last of the Nation’s First, February 11). The lives they lead are an example to us, and we are scarcely aware of these proud, self-abnegating men and women who fought so we can be free. They should be brought into focus, for us to heed feelings like one of them expressed—that contemporary India, where money and pelf matter more than law and principles, is not the kind of country they fought for. In Vellalur, near Coimbatore, I met a man aged 102, who gave all his freedom fighter’s pension to a trust. He used to visit the bank every day of the month, clad in a dhoti and with a towel on his shoulder. We should take the cue from them and unite to dispel corruption and greed from our polity. On unity, too, that generation can teach us a thing or two.
Indhu Prakash, Coimbatore
West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee raised a huge cry over the CBI team in Calcutta wanting to interrogate police commissioner Rajiv Kumar, because he knew too much about TMC’s involvement in the multi-crore Saradha scam (Centre Stage Esplanade, February 18).
Mamata blocked the CBI team as she feared Kumar would spill the beans about the missing files that conclusively prove the hand of top TMC leaders in cheating lakhs of poor investors. Her actions were not only condemnable, but unlawful as well.
Just by calling it vendetta politics and blaming PM Modi by enacting a high-pitch drama was not proper at all. Instead of cooperating with the CBI, Mamata took refuge in the practices of her street-fighting days. Irony is that the perpetrator of these unconstitutional acts claimed to be doing it to save the Constitution.
The fact that her acts were volubly supported by other opposition parties shows that none of them want the truth to come out.
K.R. Srinivasan, Secunderabad
The item ‘Plenty Problem’ (Deep Throat, February 25) wrongly mentions Krishnagiri as the Lok Sabha constituency represented by deputy speaker M. Thambidurai. He represents Karur. The error is regretted.
