Opinion - Letters to the Editor   

Employment & growth

Professor C. Rangarajan’s article on employment and growth (Oct. 23) raises important and interesting questions. It presents the enigma of ‘jobless’ growth during 1993-94 to 1999-2000 being reversed during the subsequent 5 years. While the jobless growth (or the fall in the employment elasticity from 0.41 to 0.15) during the first period is understandable in terms of the greater share of the services sector in the GDP and its faster growth, what is not clear is how this trend is reversed in the last 5 years.

Even the rise in the ‘self employed’ seems to have been ‘offset’ by the fall in casual labourers. If so, how has the employment elasticity increased back to 0.48? After all, the services sector is continuing to grow, even though the article does not give the figures, for the second period. One hopes this is not a result of some reclassification, like the Planning Commission reducing the minimum calorie need for poverty and consequently lowering the bar on poverty. Is it because of the National Rural Employment Guarantee programme? Does the scheme fall outside agricultural employment, for its share has marginally declined? The article has opened the gates for a lot of further inquiry.

V. Ranganathan,

Dr. Rangarajan has drawn attention to the much-needed reversal in the mismatch between economic growth and employment prospects in our country. This assumes importance in the context of the emphasis on “more inclusive” growth laid by the Eleventh Plan.

As noted in the Approach Paper, even with the expected acceleration in agricultural growth to 4 per cent per annum and the resulting improvement in rural employment situation, it becomes necessary to provide “remunerative non-agricultural employment” to around 10 million workers currently in agriculture. This, in turn, implies the need to accelerate growth in non-agricultural employment to over 6 per cent per annum. Indeed, this challenge becomes truly formidable in view of the compelling need to bring about significant improvement in what Dr. Rangarajan refers to as the quality of employment.

M.M. Nampoothiry,

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