India’s current employment challenge is particularly difficult as sectors that did well in generating jobs in the country’s previous economic boom years — information technology (IT), construction and agriculture – are in trouble now, Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian said on Tuesday.
Stressing that the economy needs to clock 8% to 10% growth for greater job creation, the CEA said that the IT sector that “we thought would always be a dynamic sector for India” is ‘now the new problem.’
“Employment is a very important question that the government is very focused on and takes very seriously. The problem is this – it’s relatively easy to diagnose that there is an employment problem. It’s actually really hard to say something that will satisfy the question,” Mr. Subramanian said. The only honest answer, the CEA said, is that many things need to be done to increase employment.
“First, we need to get the economy growing at 8% to 10% rate because we know that if you have dynamism, it can create opportunities for employment. That is absolutely crucial… you can’t have employment growing if the economy is growing at 3-4%,” he said, stressing this requires investments in infrastructure building, a revival of private investments and a resolution of the banking sector’s problems.
‘Boom period helped’
India’s boom period in the 2000s led to job creation in three sectors that did extremely well, Mr. Subramanian said after a public lecture at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library.
This included agriculture, construction and the IT sector.
“Today, all these three sectors are challenged. We have to work on construction, we have to work on agriculture and of course, IT is now the new problem.
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