Unemployment continues
Some people will say glass is half full. Others would say it is half empty.
It is said that it depends on your point of view. Are you a positive thinker or a negative thinker?
The new report of NSSO revealed shocking data on unemployment. Today the unemployment in our country is the worst in the last 45 years. Unemployment rate has now broken all records and is at 6.1%. If you compare it with the historical data of NSSO.
You will see the bad condition it is in. If you breakdown the youth unemployment, You will see the unemployment in the urban areas is worse than in the rural areas.
The youth unemployment rate among the urban males is 18.7% currently. And among the urban females it is 27.2%. These terrifying data have shocked everyone. So it is obvious that questions were asked about the authenticity of NSSO. And about the accuracy and trustworthiness of the report. NSSO is the National Sample Survey Office. This is a large department under the Ministry of Statistics. Which works to collect data and conduct large scale surveys across the country. They conduct surveys on factories and jobs. The survey on jobs was conducted once in every five years till 2012-13. After which the Government decided that it should be conducted every year. According to which the latest report is based on the data of 2017-18. The survey before this was conducted in 2012-13.
It was 6.1% in 2017-18, before which the data is of 2012-13. This new survey was conducted from July 2017 to July 2018, and in December 2018, the report was finalised. These surveys are 'household surveys'. Which means that the employees of NSSO visit the households to ask for the, the employment status of the members of the family. More than 1 lakh households across all the states in the country were surveyed. It included all the people from the various social and economic categories, It included people from all the walks of life. Overall it can be said that historically the reports of NSSO, were the best indicators regarding the unemployment in the country. In fact I would say it is the most trustable source of data. The reason for this is very simple. It is because most of the jobs in our country are in the informal sectors. 90%% jobs are said to be in the informal sector. And if we use data from any other source, such as EPFO or some data of a company, we neglect all these informal jobs. So the easiest and the most trustable method to check is surveying the households in a sample size. Surveying each households about the employment status in the family, the number of people unemployed and employed and based on that we can draw conclusions about the actual status in the country. I am not the only one saying this, The Chairman of our Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council, Bibek Debroy said the exact same thing that, NSSO is the best method to measure unemployment.
In India a large part of the employment is still self-employed. It is still in the area of unorganised sector, it is still in the informal sector. Therefore the enterprise surveys do not tell us anything significant. The only sensible way we can get the data on the jobs and employment, is through household surveys, Which is what the NSSO does. In 2017 when Modi Government was blamed for the growth in the joblessness in our country. People are not getting jobs in our country. In June 2017 Modi Government decided that to calculate employment, a new method should be created because the method which was used was termed 'wrong'. So the Modi Government created a task force to develop a new method to calculate employment.
This task force was led by the then Vice Chairman of Niti Aayog, Arvind Panagariya. In June 2017, Arvind Ji gave an interview to Hindustan Times where he said "the best and the most extensive survey is by the NSSO and it is the most reliable one". "It's frequency is very low and that's why I propose to conduct the survey every year." You can see now that the people appointed by the Modi Government itself say that NSSO is the most trustable and the most reliable data. NSSO is a Department under the Ministry which is under the Government. Our Government can manipulate this survey and the data. How can this be prevented? To prevent this, in 2005, a new independent body was created NSC. National Statistical Commission. NSC was supposed to check and approve the surveys, data, and reports of NSSO. Because NSC is an autonomous and independent body, there was no influence of the Government.
This is why NSC could independently check if the NSSO surveys were unbiased and correct. NSC was doing this job till now. The problem that arose is that this report shows the failure of the Modi Government. That they failed to provide jobs If the report went public, it would have meant an insult for them.
So our Government's Ministry did not let this report to be released. Although this report was checked, approved and finalized by the NSC. Still they did not let is be released. So you would ask how did we get this information. We got this information through a journalist, Somesh Jha. Somesh Jha is a journalist at the Business Standard. Who used his own sources to access this report and revealed the data publically to everyone. Obviously friends NSC's independent members did not like that the Government is hiding this data. And wants to hide the truth from the people. So the members of NSC asked why the independent body was needed in that case, if the Government wants to manipulate the data they can do so themselves they do not need the NSC members. This was the reason why two of the independent members of NSC resigned. NSC has posts for seven members. Three of the posts were anyhow empty. Two members resigned now, and the remaining two are members of the Government, one is the CEO of Niti Aayog and the other is the Chief Statistician.
Both of them are members of the Government. Which means that the NSC is not an independent body anymore. Another institution was destroyed by the Modi Government. That's my opinion. Similar to the crises in the Supreme Court, CBI and RBI last year. Now the National Statistical Commission is going through the same thing. The independence of the institutions is being ended. It is very clearly evident. I am saying this is my opinion but even you can clearly see what's happening here. Only two members remain in the NSC. Both of whom are members of the Government. The two members who resigned from NSC also claim that there were disagreements between them and the Central Government about the data on GDP. as well as on the data of the Labour Force Survey.
You can see that the Government was interfering and trying to manipulate all the data. When journalist Somesh Ji publicly revealed the data, all the members of our Government started defending this and making excuses for it. The first person that was sent to defend the Government was the Vice Chairman of Niti Aayon, Rajiv Kumar. At the beginning he seemed very confused. This report that is being cited and the data that is being cited, is not yet being finalized and approved by the Government. Who else will approve it? I suppose the Cabinet will approve it. "Cabinet Sir?' I don't know. I.. My honest answer is that I don't know. How can we reveal that to you? 'Because the report is with you.' But we don't have it. If we had the final report, I would have told you. Then the Chief of the Niti Aayog was sent who started citing the data of Ola and Uber. He talked about the growth in Ola and Uber and how it is a new source of employment. In 2014, Ola had 37,000 registered partner drivers across 20 states. Now they have a million registered partner drivers.... and Uber has over 1.2 million registered.... Ola and Uber, both have created about 2 million employment. You can say about 15-20% maybe. Meanwhile Piyush Goyal Ji gave an interview where he said that the nature of jobs have changed. Which is why the NSSO report does not have credible data.
Where as the BJP members tweet urging people to check the data of EPFO, Mudra Loans, to see the number of employment generated . Friends all these people are citing all these sources, I would like to tell you that the NSSO survey is a household survey. All the various types households, sectors, and jobs were covered in the survey. Whether it was Ola, Uber, EPFO, Mudra Loan or any kind of self employment.
All the kinds of employment were covered before compiling this data. On the other hand Jaitley Ji says that this was only the draft not the finalized report. But even that is not the truth, Somesh Ji clearly said that this report was finalized by the NSC. It does not need the Government approval, Government is simply stopping it from being released. It is being said that the Government will release a new NSSO report which will show a growth in employment. I do not have any doubt, the Government might do it. Because the NSC is not independent anymore. They are the Government's members and can manipulate the data as they wish. This was the story of unemployment and unemployment data in our country. According to me there is no doubt that our country is going through one of the worst job crisis. I would like to say this, even if you already have a job, it is still terrible that there is a job crisis in our country. Because if many people are after one job, and you are employed somewhere, if you are treated wrong or you need a salary hike, you cannot demand that, because there is a risk that your employer may hire someone else at a lower salary. Overall, I am trying to say that it is a terrible thing for all of us that the joblessness has increased so much in our country. Whether you are employed or unemployed.
Thank you !