According to the sources, the new policy is expected to take into account the jobs estimated to be created under the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme across a dozen sectors besides the rising number of gig workforce and platform workers in the country. Simultaneously, the policy will work out concrete measures that will be needed to employ the low skilled workers who are not getting enough opportunities for jobs in the digitized economy

Work has begun to identify the members of the committee that is expected to have representatives from stakeholder ministries, academia, experts and representatives of employers and trade unions. This move of the Modi government will be a major one during this period of continuing pandemic preceded by slow down in economy since the economy was disrupted since March 2020 and now after eighteen months, though the economy has started picking up , the job losses and the layoffs which took place during this period, have not been fully taken care of.

As a result, while the new entrants excepting a few highly skilled got opportunities to be absorbed in the workforce in 2021, most of the jobless remained in the same condition, while the majority of new entrants are still looking for jobs in a depressed market. The urgency of a comprehensive employment policy is thus imperative and the Government is eager to come with the first draft by the end of March 2022. Currently, the employment surveys are under way and the data currently made available, will be used to give the latest status and the projection for the employment.

Last year, a group of ministers led by then social justice & empowerment minister Thawar Chand Gehlot, had suggested that the National Employment Policy should lay out a sectoral roadmap with incentives for employment generation.

According to the official, the policy will have twin objectives of creating an enabling environment for attracting new enterprises and industries to generate employment opportunities while improving the skill sets of the existing workforce to make it employable and competent enough to match global standards with special emphasis on increasing the headcount of female workforce.

Two recent reports - one the World Economic Outlook (WEO) released by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the other on employment status study made by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) have once again shown how the present economic policies of the Narendra Modi Government including its packages during the pandemic period have failed to take care of the very basic of the economic growth of a developing country like India- job generation.

Both the studies make the point that the latest shape of recovery in economy may lead to much higher GDP growth in 2021-22 compared to the low base of pandemic hit 2020-21 but this growth is failing to have any positive impact on the employment level as a whole and the present recovery process will further widen inequality in the Indian society. The income level of the 90 per cent of the population have fallen while the upper 10 per cent might accrue benefits from the growth process but mostly, the real beneficiaries will be 2 per cent of the population.

The income level can only increase through generation of more jobs and that is the only way to reduce the level of poverty irrespective of growth level of the economy since the growth is not benefitting 90 per cent of the population. Leading economists of the country have pointed out this anomaly of the growth process in India and it has been accepted at the highest level of the Government of India also that the job generation has to be given a big boost through a new employment policy and that has to be implemented very fast.

The WEO report notes that the dangerous divergence in economic prospects across countries remains a major concern. Aggregate output for the advanced economy group is expected to regain its pre-pandemic trend path in 2022 and exceed it by 0.9 per cent in 2024. By contrast, aggregate output for the emerging market and developing economy group (excluding China) is expected to remain 5.5 per cent below the pre-pandemic forecast in 2024, resulting in a larger setback to improvements in their living standards.

As the IMF sees it, within this overall theme, what is particularly worrisome is that this gap between recovery in output and employment is likely to be larger in emerging markets and developing economies than in advanced economies. Further, young and low-skilled workers are likely to be worse off than prime-age and high-skilled workers, respectively. This is more than vindicated in respect of India as per CMIE studies which show that the women and the low skilled workers have been most adversely affected as a result of both slowdown and pandemic.

Indian finance ministry officials are gloating about the v shaped recovery and even finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman at the recent IMF-World Bank meetings gave a big picture of Indian economy in her meetings in Washington based on expected high GDP growth in 2021-2 but what the IMF has projected on employment — that the recovery in unemployment is lagging the recovery in output (or GDP) — matters immensely for India. CMIE data amply justifies the IMF contention in respect of India relating to employment not picking up despite increased GDP. CMIE data shows the total number of employed people in Indian economy as of May-August 2021 was 394 million as against 405 million in the same period in 2020 the period of lock down in India.

This means that even after one year and the easing of lock down in most parts of the country resulting in higher GDP growth in economy, the employment position declined, rather than improved. Thus the recovery process in 2021-22 has not been accompanied by commensurate employment. The ground reality is that the pandemic related job losses continued in the industrial units even after the recovery started and the units stared making profits in their operations. The reality is that the industry owners took advantage of the pandemic in streamlining their operations with less people and the employees were the victims of the greed of the employers which the Government policies allowed.

Leading economists make the point that special stress has to be given on protecting and strengthening the informal sector 86 per cent of which belongs to unorganized sector. This sector contributes to the bulk of employment and GDP of the nation. The pandemic has hit badly this sector. The National Employment Policy has to give special focus on improving the quality of life of the unorganized workers and creating enough jobs in the labour intensive sectors. Prime Minister is more concerned about jobs in digital economy. That is okay but the massive unemployment problem can be r eradicated only by strengthening the productive base of the informal sector in India. (IPA Service)