The reality is, the share of workforce is agriculture is to decline form 45.8 per cent in 2023 to 25 per cent in 2047, as per the Economic Survey 2023-24, which will result into rise of workforce in other sectors. A study by TeamLease Degree Apprenticeship has said that employment in services sector has slowed with a growth rate dropping from 49.9 per cent in 2021 to 35.5 per cent in 2022, 27.5 per cent in 2023, and 23.1 per cent in 2024. If we look and absolute number of jobs in service sector it was just 21.5 million in 2021, 29.48 million in 2022, 37.6 million in 2023, and 46.3 million in 2024.

Manufacturing sector has just emerged from a negative growth in terms of employment in 2022. In 2021, the TeamLease study shows, there was -27 per cent negative growth with total employment at only 29.83 million. It rose only 5.8 per cent in 2022 and the number of jobs was increased to 31.57 million. There was a rise of 12.9 per cent in 2023 with 35.65 million in employment in this sector. In 2024, it is projected to rise by 18.4 per cent to reach 42.2 million jobs.

It is obvious that India, which is aspiring to become manufacturing hub of the world after China, can’t meet the requirement78.5 lakh jobs annually until 2030 in non-farm sector, where barring the manufacturing sector all have registered a declining trend in employment generation.

The Union Budget 2024-25 has announced Employment linked incentive (ELI) schemes, and it is claimed that it may generate 8 million jobs over the next three years. The TeamLease study has estimated that apart from this manufacturing is projected to generate 6.5 million jobs this year if the growth rate continues at 18.4 per cent. The study obviously projects a rosy picture of employment scenario in manufacturing sector, which is still undergoing a difficult phase of domestic and global uncertainties.

With Rs10,000 crore budget allocation through ELI schemes government has claimed 8 million jobs in the next three years, and 10 million youths would be skilled over the next five years. However, the reality is, this amount will be given to the private sector, which will be spent on paying their employees, indirectly getting free labour worth this amount. Only public money will be given in the name of employment generation only, which will not happen. Employers employ as per their need, and some for the government money they could get through fraudulent means, which we have seen in the past.

It has been much claim on employment generation capacity of the Capex. However, we have seen in the recent years, that it has failed to create desired level of employment generation chiefly due to deployment of modern technologies. It is still by and large a labour intensive sector, but it is changing fast in terms of employment and skill levels.

The inter-ministerial meeting chaired by Union Minister of Labour and Employment has though highlighted the budget to be employment-centric, the promise for constitution of a core group for building synergies and providing holistic picture of employment generation in the country, give rise to a suspicion that the Union government is primarily interested in providing a rosy picture on employment generation, as the recent RBI data has shown, which attracted large scale criticism on it extrapolation on employment on the basis of the date it gathered from several sources.

RBI had also showed exponential rise in employment in the country when there the lockdown has completely shut down the economy and there was no job except the essential one. PM Modi had also recently claimed on the basis of this data that the government was generating over 20 million jobs yearly for the last 4 years, which meant the unemployment problem has already been solved, since that much persons enter every year in the Indian job market.

Senior officials from 19 different ministries and departments participated in this high-level meeting along with representatives from industry associations like the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). However, no concrete action plan has evolved for employment generation.

Union Minister of Labour and Employment though tried to elaborate how the ELI package in the Union Budget 2024-25 consisting of three schemes would benefit employers and employees and promote job creation.

Industries have been demanding for skilled workforce, which the government has never been able to provide. Economic Survey 2024-25 has said that there are only 4.4 per cent of young workforce in the country who are formally skilled. In the changing world of work with deployment of even higher technologies including AI, many will remain unemployable in the manufacturing, with lesser and lesser scope of employment opportunities.

India actually needs to chalk-out a more comprehensive plan for employment generation rather than giving public money in private pockets with a hope that private manufacturing sector would generate enough employment. Union Budget 2024-25 just failed in this regard. (IPA Service)