(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.