The October-December period last year saw an almost four-fold jump in job creation – a time frame during which the Centre announced its demonetisation move.
However, casual workers suffered the most even as more regular workers were added to the workforce, the latest quarterly survey conducted by the Labour Bureau showed.
In October-December, 1.22 lakh jobs were created compared with 32,000 jobs in July-September and 77,000 jobs in April-June last year.
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The fourth round of quarterly survey was conducted by the Labour Bureau, under the Labour and Employment Ministry, in eight sectors – manufacturing, construction, trade, transport, education, health, accommodation and restaurants and information technology.
Employment increased in all the sectors, except construction, in October-December. Compared to this, jobs had declined in four out of eight sectors in the previous quarter.
The survey showed highest job creation in the manufacturing sector with new jobs for 83,000 workers compared with 24,000 workers in the previous quarter.
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The education sector saw 18,000 new jobs, the IT sector added 12,000 workers and trade sector saw employment go up by 7,000 workers.
‘Statistical aberration’
“This looks like a statistical aberration since demonetisation led to job losses in the short-term,” said Alakh N Sharma, Director, Institute of Human Development, “There is no possibility that job creation shot up three times during October-December period.”
There was a 1.39 lakh increase in regular workers and 1.24 lakh increase in contract workers during the December-ended quarter. However, casual workers lost the most number of jobs – 1.52 lakh – in October-December compared with the previous quarters of 2017.
“The numbers showing a jump in job creation come as a pleasant surprise. However, a pick up in jobs under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme could be one of the possible reasons for a spike in new jobs,” said Soumya Kanti Ghosh, chief economist, State Bank of India.