(This article first appeared in The Print)
A leaked National Sample Survey Office report putting
India’s unemployment rate at a 45-year high in 2017-18 allowed the opposition
parties to blame the Narendra Modi government for not creating enough jobs in
the last five years. The BJP argued back by saying that India’s youth now have
new avenues for jobs, which is reflected in the country’s booming startup
ecosystem, massive infrastructure development and record rise in exports.
Given the emerging complexity of the job scenario, the
contradictions in various employment data become understandable. While the
latest data from the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) shows that
new enrolments rose to a 17-month high, the much cited NSSO data points towards
the opposite direction. The near saturation of traditional employment sectors
is an accepted fact. But what has largely gone undocumented is the rise of new
innovation and technology driven jobs.
“Current job surveys that focus on employment in the
traditional sectors no longer provide an accurate representation of job
creation,” an Ernst & Young report, ‘Future of Jobs In India: A 2022
Perspective’, said while describing India’s job landscape as being in a
transition phase — saturation in core sectors and parallel emergence of “new
engines of job creation”. Among the trends it recognises, two are particularly
relevant: absorption of surplus farm labour into self-employment/micro
entrepreneurship and emergence of new opportunities created through Internet
and technologies.
The BJP government has pushed ahead on this technological
front with initiatives like Stand-up India, Startup India, Mudra loan scheme
and Venture Capital Fund for Scheduled Castes to assist new entrepreneurs. It
is because of these steps that India has emerged as the second largest start-up
ecosystem.
On the other hand, the Congress has in its manifesto for the
2019 Lok Sabha elections promised Rs 6,000 per month to 20 per cent people
living below the poverty line and 150 days of work under National Rural
Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). For a country that is poised to take the
next big step, this is far from the desired push. Where will the funds come to
provide a teaming 25 crore people an annuity of Rs 72,000? What work will be
done in a village over 150 days? These are the questions that have been left to
our imagination. To spend a major chunk of the budget on this scheme would
require severe cost cutting in other spheres that will directly affect the
middle and neo-middle classes.
Long before India’s political parties in opposition found a
poll-plank in employment data, the changing nature of jobs was being discussed across
the globe. India too has been in the middle of this change in jobs landscape,
though the fine points have been blurred in the ongoing high-stakes 2019 Lok
Sabha elections.
The change in jobs scenario has been swift yet subtle. We
are no longer looking at the socialist model of 9-5 jobs, and this is a crucial
difference. This is not to say that people are not earning their livelihood but
that they are no longer doing so within the old parameters of employment. This
shift has been enabled by widespread use of technology and creation of a
knowledge economy and information society. In the past, state-owned offices and
private workplaces were essential job providers. This has changed now. With the
altered dynamics of distance, information and networking, people can now earn
their livelihood putting their talent and skills to use. We have decisively and
irrevocably entered ‘gig economy’ where entrepreneurship becomes a crucial
factor.
In the introduction to the ‘World Development Report 2019:
The Changing Nature of Work’, World Bank president Jim Yong Kim points out that
“many children currently in primary school will work in jobs as adults that do
not even exist today”. This report makes us understand how the old yardstick of
jobs has been rendered obsolete by the changed nature of employment. The report
cites India as one of the countries where freelancing is booming. The number of
freelancers in India is pegged at 15 million. It points out that a combination
of innovation and technology is creating new types of jobs. Among the ‘new’
jobs that never existed two decades ago are app developers. According to the
same World Bank report, India has nearly 4 million app developers now and the
country is also the second-largest consumer of massive open online courses
(MOOCs).
Another significant change comes in the form of
platform-based businesses that have revolutionised the traditional input-output
models. We now have systems where platforms such as Flipkart and Amazon bring
together buyers, producers and providers. These changes put serious questions
to the traditional parameters of jobs and taxation. Moreover, the format where
one person stayed in a job for decades is fast becoming redundant.
A NASSCOM report ‘IndiaTech StartUp Ecosystem: Approaching
Escape Velocity’ points out how India’s startup ecosystem has moved into
smaller towns, even as eight Indian startups became unicorns in 2018 — the
third most after the US and China. To continue with this swing, the BJP has
promised Rs 100 lakh crore investment in basic infrastructure development,
connecting all villages with optical fibre, encourage entrepreneurship, create
network of roads from metropolis to villages, set up health and wellness
centres which will use telemedicine. All these schemes will give a big boost to
employment and entrepreneurship.
Thus, it is clear that the way forward involves investment
in and improvement of human capital. In this light, the BJP’s promise to
provide financial support as well as startup ecosystem sounds far more
pragmatic and relevant than the Congress’ ‘Nyay’ where the source of income has
not been identified. The BJP’s promises and path take you towards IT-enabled
jobs and entrepreneurship, which is also the route indicated by these reports.
We have to shed our traditional outlook towards jobs and explore new avenues.
This is not possible without skill development, entrepreneurship and technology
because in this age of robotics, artificial intelligence and automation, the
nature of jobs is rapidly changing.
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