Govt to form a core group to integrate multiple data sources on employment generation

The government will form a core group of officials of 20 central ministries and industry to integrate multiple data sources on employment generation under different schemes of the government. The decision was taken at the high-level inter-ministerial meeting chaired by labour and employment minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Friday. “The focus of the meeting was to come up with a systematic approach for recording regular data on employment, as an outcome of schemes or programmes and projects, by creating synergies across ministries and departments,” ministry of labour and employment said in a statement issued after the meeting.

As per the statement, Mandaviya said that various ministries and departments are implementing numerous schemes and projects that lead to huge employment generation, but the data currently exist in silos.

“There is a need to create linkages among different employment data sources, assimilating and integrating them to develop a system that captures a holistic picture of employment generation in the country,” Mandaviya said.

The government announced three employment-linked incentive schemes, as part of the Union Budget 2024-25, that are expected to benefit 29 million youth with a cumulative outgo of Rs 1,07,000 crore over the next five years.

These include three schemes with incentive for first times, both employee and employer for additional employment generated in manufacturing and incentive to employer for additional employment across all other sectors. India’s working-age population is expected to increase about 9.7 million per year during 2021-31 and 4.2 million per year during 2031-41, according to government estimates.The minister also urged the industry to provide internship opportunities to the youth to prepare them with adequate skill sets that will match the industry requirements.

Commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal attended the meeting along with secretary-level officials of 20 central ministries and departments as well as representatives of industry chambers including the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Ficci).

The ministry of labour and employment recently refuted Citi group’s report which stated India will struggle to create sufficient employment opportunities even with a 7% growth rate saying it does not analyse all official data sources available in the public domain.

“India has created more than 80 million employment opportunities in the five-year period from 2017-18 to 2021-22, translating to an average of over 20 million jobs or employment per year,” it said citing the data from the Periodic Labour Force Survey and the Reserve Bank of India’s KLEMS data.