Ashwini Vaishnaw rejects jobless growth claim, says 1.44 crore opportunities created every year

Vaishnaw, the Union Minister for railways, electronics and information technology, and communications, was speaking at News18’s Rising Bharat Summit on March 19.

Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has rejected accusations by Congress leader P Chidambaram of India's growth story being 'jobless', saying data showed that nearly 1.5 crore job opportunities were being created every year. According to Vaishnaw, this is double of what was being created a few years ago.

Vaishnaw was responding to a question on the matter at News18's Rising Bharat Summit in New Delhi on March 19.

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"I challenge P Chidambaram," Vaishnaw said.

"Anyone who is employed with an organisation is registered with the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) and a portion of their salary is deducted and the employer also makes a contribution. This data is accepted by everyone. And as per EPFO data, the number of new jobs minus those who have left their jobs plus those who have returned to employment - this net number is the total job opportunity. This is straightforward math," he added.

"This total job opportunities figure used to be 6 lakh per month a few years ago. Now, it's 12 lakh on average. That makes is 1.44 crore for a year. Please ask Mr Chidambaram if this figure is true or false."

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According to the latest payrolls data released by the EPFO on February 20 for December 2023, the final month of 2023 saw 8.41 lakh new additions to the subscriber base, 1.55 lakh exits, and 7.27 lakh subscribers who rejoined, resulting in a net new EPF subscribers of 14.1 lakh.

In the first nine months of 2023-24, the EPFO's subscriber base has increased by 1.26 crore on a net basis compared to 1.39 crore in all of 2022-23, 1.22 crore in 2021-22, 77.08 lakh in 2020-21, 78.59 lakh in 2019-20, and 61.12 lakh in 20181-19.

As per the statistics ministry's latest Periodic Labour Force Survey, India's urban unemployment rate declined to 6.5 percent in October-December 2023 – a quarter in which the country's GDP growth rate beat all estimates by surging to 8.4 percent.