Govt tracking investment projects for hard data on jobs:Debroy

The government is monitoring specific investment projects to find hard data on job creation amid concerns that not enough is being done to generate employment, Niti Aayog Member Bibek Debroy said today.
He also said that maximum job creation will happen in the services sector and not manufacturing.
"There are various government initiatives. The government is trying to monitor specific projects, specific investment proposals so that we have some hard data on jobs," he said at a Ficci event here.
Debroy further said that tracking some of the projects will provide figures on the number of jobs that might have been created in the organised sector like garments or pharmaceuticals.

India suffers from a lack of reliable, timely data on employment which has made it difficult for policy makers and independent observers to assess the extent of employment generation at different points of time.
Some data is collected and published by certain agencies including the Labour Bureau, but the coverage is very small.

Earlier this week, the government has set up a task force headed by Niti Aayog Vice-Chairman Arvind Panagariya to give suggestions to deal with employment data vacuum so that policies can be modified to promote job creation.
Debroy added that the primary growth in jobs will come from the services sector.

"And even when reforms happen in agriculture, most of the jobs will be created (in the section) that will show up in National Accounts as services," he said.
Elaborating his point, the Niti Aayog Member said transport and logistics, which come under the services sector, where large number of jobs will be created.
He also lamented that quality of vocational education was not in sync with the skill sets demand in the market.