LabourMin: Citigroup report fails to account for positive jobs data from official sources

The report had also said that while the official unemployment rate is just 3.2 per cent (16 per cent youth), details reflect serious issues around quality of jobs and possible underemployment. Agriculture accounts for around 46 per cent of all employment but less than 20 per cent of GDP, while both manufacturing and services sectors absorb lesser share of labour than their share in GDP.

“Share of the formal sector in non-agri jobs is still only around 25 per cent. Only 21 per cent of the labour force has a “salaried” job, lower than 24 per cent pre-Covid. Share of employment in rural areas has remained at around 67 per cent between 2018 and 2023, indicating that the rural to urban migration process has practically stalled,” the report had said.

The Ministry on Monday said the Citigroup report fails to consider the positive trends and comprehensive data from official sources.

Citing data from RBI’s KLEMS data, the Ministry said it indicates more than 8 crore employment opportunities created between 2017-18 to 2021-22 translating to an average of over 2 crore employment per year. It also said that more than 6.2 crore net subscribers joined EPFO between September 2017 – March 2024.

The Ministry said private data sources have several shortcomings. “These surveys use their own derived definition of employment – unemployment which is not aligned to either national or international standards. The sample distribution and methodology are often critiqued for not being as robust or representative as official data sources like PLFS. Therefore, reliance on such private data sources over official statistics can lead to misleading conclusions and thus, should be used with caution,” it said.