RBI data shows decline in job growth

With five days still remaining for the online registration to end, the railways has received more than two crore applications for about one lakh vacancies, according to reports. The number of applications for the Railway jobs shows that so many people chasing so few low-level government jobs. This also demonstrates that there is a dearth of jobs in the private sector and people compete for government jobs due to uncertainty in the jobs market.

The finding from the latest KLEMS India database, a research project supported by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), explains the decline in job opportunities during high growth period. The data is available on RBI's website.

LiveMint which accessed the data reported that the employment in the total Indian economy shrank by 0.1 per cent in financial year 2015-16 and by 0.2 per cent in 2014-15. Far from more jobs being created, employment has actually contracted. The data, recently updated till 2015-16, shows that employment fell in several sectors. 'Agriculture, forestry, fishing', mining, manufacture of food products, textiles, leather products, paper, transport equipment and trade are some sectors in which employment contracted in both 2014-15 and 2015-16.

The strange thing is that these were years of high growth, with real gross domestic product (GDP) growing by 7.4% in 2014-15 and 8.2% in 2015-16.

The report further asked if employment actually shrank when GDP growth was relatively high, what would happen during lower growth period in 2016-17 and 2017-18, and disruption in the informal sector as a result of demonetisation and the introduction of the goods and services tax (GST)?

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