Official employment data masks India's jobs problem, say economists

India's growing employment stems largely from self-employed individuals, unpaid workers and temporary farm hires, whose jobs are not equivalent to formal positions with regular wages, private sector economists said on Wednesday.The comments follow labour department figures released this week showing 20 million new employment opportunities generated each year since 2017/18, countering a Citibank report that said only 8.8 million jobs were added each year since 2012.

"What is clear is that there is a large increase coming from agriculture and from self-employment, which includes own account work or unpaid family work," said Amit Basole, head of the Centre for Sustainable Employment at the Azim Premji University.The jump in employment cannot be equated to the creation of formal jobs with regular wages, Basole said, going by detailed data available up to the financial year 2022/23.In the fiscal year that ended in March 2024, employment in the economy rose by 46.7 million for a total of 643.3 million, up from 596.7 million a year ago, the central bank said in a statement on Monday.The Reserve Bank of India database showed agricultural work opportunities contributed 48 million of the 100 million jobs generated between financial years 2017/18 and 2022/23, Basole said."I wouldn't call them jobs," he added. "They're just people working in agriculture or in non-farm self-employment because of lack of adequate demand for workers from businesses."