Narayana Murthy shares CEA's concern over lack of reliable job data

Lack of such data has thrown up big challenges before the Centre to solve the unemployment problem

Infosys Co-Founder Narayana Murthy on Thursday endorsed Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian's concern over a lack of reliable jobs data, which has thrown up big challenges before the Centre to solve the unemployment problem.

"I entirely agree with the Chief Economic Advisor, Mr Arvind Subramanian. He has already recognised the problem that data on jobs is not accurate. This is an important and an essential first step to address an issue," he told reporters on the sidelines of an inauguration of Synergetic Security operation Centre of SISA, a payment security specialist, here.

"I believe once somebody is in a position has recognised the problem — the problem of lack of reliable jobs data, I am sure the government will be in a position to solve employment problem," he added.

According to media reports, the government has kicked off a new employment survey to create closer-to-real-time credible information, the first tranche of which is expected to be revealed in December next year.

"The data thus collected will help government and companies to make analysis as to what are the areas where we have higher unemployment — in which all states it is high, and which all states it is low, and automatically, we will find out what kind of encouragement we need to give to entrepreneurs to create jobs, in certain parts of the country and sectors of the economy," Murthy said. Murthy also said he listens to Subramanian with tremendous attention and care, of whatever he says, because he is a learned and highly qualified person.

Asked if such genuine data would become a cause of embarrassment for companies who were negating a huge number of job losses, Murthy said it should worry them.

"We should not worry about who gets embarrassed, who doesn't. That is not the important thing. I wouldn't worry," he said.

Responding to a query, Murthy said the day a company loses transparency, the business would begin to climb down. "Business may go up and down but what is important is the values cannot go up and down. Transparency, fairness and accountability are the most important attributes of any corporation. The day you lose transparency, then, I believe, that's the day your business starts going down," Murthy said.