"Indian labour markets going through mass unemployment, low-quality employment": Jairam Ramesh

New Delhi [India], July 15 : Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Monday targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said that the Indian labour markets are suffering mass unemployment and low-quality employment, which will be overlooked in the upcoming budget speech.
Taking to his official X handle, Ramesh said, "India's labour markets are characterised by a dual tragedy: Mass unemployment and an abundance of low-quality employment."
Speaking on the upcoming budget, the Congress leader pointed out that the upcoming budget will also "undoubtedly make use of the RBI data to paint a rosy picture of the economy," adding that "the reality on the jobs front is extremely grim because of mass unemployment and low-quality employment and will certainly get overlooked in the Budget speech next Tuesday."
Stepping up his attacks on PM Modi over unemployment, the Congress leader said, "At a time when India faces a most severe Modi-made unemployment crisis, when lakhs of young people apply for each and every job, the self-anointed non-biological PM is busy reacting the only way he knows--by applying his patented 3D model of denying, distracting, and distorting."
Ramesh further said, "Based on new RBI estimates, the government is claiming a booming job market. The self-appointed divinity himself has chimed in with the claim that the economy created 80 million jobs."
The Congress leader further said that the alleged growth in employment figures doesn't square up to the grim realities of the Modi-era economy, where private investment has been weak and consumption growth sluggish. "The Government has done some artful statistical jugglery to claim job creation, by adopting a very expansive definition of employment, without paying attention to the quality and circumstances of employment," Ramesh said.
Stepping up his criticism, Ramesh said that a large part of the claimed employment growth is just recording unpaid household work done by women as employment.
He added, "Amidst the poor economic climate, the share of salaried, formal employment in the labour market has decreased. Workers are moving to low-productivity informal and agricultural jobs - this is an economic tragedy."
The statement by Ramesh added, "However, since the '80 million new jobs' headline elides discussion on the quality of jobs, the government touts the 'creation' of these low-productivity, poorly paid jobs as an achievement. This deception is also why the RBI's data shows an increase in employment during the Covid-19 pandemic years, when large sections of the economy fully shut down. While crucial sectors like education saw 12 lakh fewer jobs in 2020-2021, a whopping 1.8 crore jobs were created in agriculture."
Ramesh in his statement said that the factory workers, teachers, miners, etc. who returned home during Covid-19 and had to fall back upon farming in their family's fields or as tenants for a richer farmer registered as a job created in agriculture. Slamming the government, he said, "This travesty is the non-biological Prime Minister's economic legacy."