Over 1 Cr Indians Lost Job in 2018: Study

New Delhi: In what could come as an unsettling piece of news for the Modi government, a leading economic and research farm has revealed that over one crore Indians lost their jobs in 2018.

The rural sector was the worst hit as over 90 lakh lost their jobs as compared to just 18 lakh in urban India.

The number of employed recorded in December 2018 was at 397 million, which was 10.9 million less than the figure of 407.9 million seen a year ago at the end of December 2017, the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) said in its study.

The job loss figures, if true, flies in the face of the Modi Government which has been trumpeting its report card and the claims of job creations across sector.

In January 2018, a study commissioned by its own think-tank showed that seven million jobs were created in 2017-18 — closer to the government’s promise of providing 10 million jobs. However, the findings were met with skepticism and outright rejection.

According to the latest CMIE job analysis, women were significantly impacted by job losses during 2018. Out of the 1.1 crore jobs lost, women accounted for 88 lakh jobs whereas men lost only 22 lakh jobs. Around 65 lakh rural women lost their jobs, whereas the figure for urban women was at 23 lakh. Men on the other hand were not as affected by the job losses. Urban men gained 5,00,000 jobs, whereas rural men lost 23 lakh jobs.

People belonging to age groups between 40 years to 59 years kept their jobs, while all other age groups saw jobs shrinking, the report said. Around 37 lakh salaried employees lost jobs in 2018. Also, job losses were concentrated among the uneducated, as well as wage labourers, agricultural labourers and small traders. The latter three were also the worst affected in terms of employment during the aftermath of demonetisation.

Former BJP leader Yashwant Sinha in his new book, ‘India Unmade’, sought to expose Modi over his claims of job creation. Painting a grim picture of the job market, Sinha listed out some recent advertisement of job vacancies and the rush to grab the handful number of posts.

1. In May 2017, twenty-five lakh people appeared for a competitive exam for 6,000 jobs as Group D employees in the West Bengal government. Candidates travelled from Bihar and Jharkhand for the exam, in which over 400 people were competing for each job.

2. In January 2018, 12,453 people applied for the job of peon in the Rajasthan government. There were only 18 vacancies, which means nearly 700 people vied for each post. The applicants included 129 engineers, twenty-three lawyers, a chartered accountant and 393 postgraduates in the arts stream.

3. On 31 March 2018, newspapers reported that over 2.8 crore people had applied to take the online exam for nearly 90,000 jobs: 26,502 posts of train drivers and 62,907 posts of gangmen, switchmen, trackmen, cabinmen, helpers and porters in the Indian Railways. That translates to over 300 people applying online for each job.

4. In a month-long process that began on 8 April, Mumbai Police looked to fill 1,137 vacancies for the post of constable. Among those who applied were 167 MBAs, 423 engineers, 543 postgraduates, three bachelors of law and 167 bachelors in business administration.