Artful statistics jugglery: Congress slams PM Modi’s ‘eight crore jobs’ claim

New Delhi: Congress on Monday debunked Prime Minister Narendra Modi‘s claim about creating eight crore jobs in the last 3-4 years, saying the government has done some “artful statistics jugglery” by adopting a “very expansive” definition of employment like marking unpaid household work by women as jobs created.

In a statement, Congress General Secretary (Communications) Jairam Ramesh alleged that the prime minister is “applying his patented 3D model of denying, distracting and distorting” at a time India is facing the “most severe Modi-made unemployment crisis” and when lakhs of young people apply for each and every job available.

The remarks came following Modi’s claim at the launch of projects worth Rs 29,000 crore in Mumbai on Saturday. Modi had said his government continues to prioritise stability and growth and the creation of eight crore new jobs in the last 3-4 years has “silenced” those “spreading fake narratives” about unemployment, citing a recent RBI report.

Insisting that the government’s “artful statistical jugglery” comes “without paying attention to the quality and circumstances of employment”, Ramesh said a large part of the “claimed employment growth” is just recording unpaid household work done by women as employment”.

Claiming that the government is talking about a booming job market based on a RBI report, he said the share of salaried, formal employment has decreased amid a poor economic climate.

“Workers are moving to low-productivity informal and agricultural jobs – this is an economic tragedy. However, since the ‘80 million new jobs’ headline eludes discussion on the quality of jobs, the government touts the ‘creation’ of these low-productivity, poorly paid jobs as an achievement,” he said.

He alleged that “this deception” is also why the RBI’s data shows an increase in employment during the Covid-19 pandemic years when large sections of the economy fully shut down.

“While crucial sectors like education saw 12 lakh fewer jobs in 2020-2021, a whopping 1.8 crore ‘jobs’ were ‘created’ in agriculture. Thus, factory workers, teachers, miners, etc., who returned home during Covid-19 and had to fall back upon farming in their family’s fields or as tenants for a richer farmer registered as a ‘job created’ in agriculture. This travesty is the non-biological prime minister’s economic legacy,” he said.

“Based on new RBI estimates, the. The self-appointed divinity himself has chimed in with the claim that the economy created 80 million jobs. The truth is that the alleged growth in employment figures doesn’t square up to the grim realities of the Modi era economy, where private investment has been weak and consumption growth sluggish,” he added.

Ramesh also said the forthcoming Budget on July 23 will also “undoubtedly make use” of the RBI data to paint a “rosy picture” of the economy but the “reality on the jobs front, however, is extremely grim – both because of mass unemployment and an abundance of low-quality employment”.

This “dual tragedy” will certainly get overlooked in the Budget speech, he alleged.