No ‘spin-doctoring’ can change fact that last 10 years saw ‘jobloss growth’: Congress

NEW DELHI, SEPTEMBER 30: The Congress on Monday dismissed as “half-truths” the Government’s assertions of creating 8 crore employment opportunities between 2021 and 2024 and 6.2 crore net subscribers joining the EPFO database.

Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh said that amidst the “U-turns and scandals” that have marked the last few months of this “tottering” Government, “the PM and his drum beaters have tried to find some solace in their economic record, claiming to have created 8 crore employment opportunities between 2021 and 2024”.

“This claim initially emerged from the RBI KLEMS data, which we had earlier countered on July 15, 2024. The Government now claim that 6.2 crore net subscribers joined the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) database between September 2017 and March 2024. Both claims are based on half-truths”, he said in a statement.

A large part of the claimed “employment growth” has recorded the unpaid household work by women as “employment”, he said, adding that it is not new job creation.

Amidst the poor economic climate, workers are moving to low-productivity informal and agricultural jobs. While crucial sectors like education saw 12 lakh fewer jobs in 2020-2021, a whopping 1. 8 crore ‘jobs’ were ‘created’ in agriculture”, he said. Thus, factory workers, teachers, miners, etc. who returned home during COVID-19 and had to return to farming, Ramesh argued.

This shift to low-productivity, poorly paid jobs is an economic travesty, which the Government is touting as an achievement, the Congress leader said.

He further said the Government cites the addition of 6.2 crore net subscribers in the EPFO database to show record employment growth, without revealing the full picture.

EPFO only tracks the organised sector which is less than 10% of total employment. The Supreme Court verdict in 2020 required the EPFO to include contractual workers at any establishment which employs more than 20 people. A substantial number of workers who were already employed are now being reflected in its data – these are not new jobs created”, Ramesh said.

Ramesh further said that firms with 20 or more employees come under the purview of the EPF Act moved from 19 to 20 employees in 1 year will suddenly appear in the EPFO data as 20 new “jobs” even though net job creation is a single job.

India’s unemployment rate today is the highest it has been in 45 years, with the unemployment rate for graduate youth at 42%.

The final straw has been the PM’s economic policy of favouring a few large business groups, which is destroying competition and impacting inflation as well, he said.

(PTI)