Lok Sabha Elections 2024|'Employment opportunities have grown manifold': PM Modi says his govt's track record on job front best

Bhubaneswar: Prime Minister Narendra Modi said his government's track record in creating job opportunities for youth is best compared to previous governments, as support to emerging sectors like space, semiconductor manufacturing and EVs as well as aid to startups, substantial spend on infrastructure and PLI schemes helped create more employment.

Addressing criticism of not creating enough jobs in the economy, Modi in an interview with PTI said his government has worked with "a comprehensive, multi-sectoral approach to bring the best opportunities that the world has to offer at India's doorstep."

"Our track record in creating more and more opportunities for our youth as compared to previous governments has been the best," he said.

Listing out the initiatives that created more employment, he said a large number of recruitments have been done in government sector. "Lakhs of letters were given for recruitment in the central government offices in the last one year alone."

To complement this, the government created a conducive environment for growth of the private sector, which also creates jobs.

"Within 10 years, we improved our Ease of Business rankings from 134th rank (in the world) in 2014 to 63rd in 2024," he said, indicating that the easier it is for the private sector to do business in India, the more it helps them grow and create jobs. Also, the government brought the Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme for various sectors to make India a manufacturing hub.

"In 2014, 78 per cent of mobile phones sold in India were imported. Today, more than 99 per cent of mobile phones sold in India are 'Made in India' and we have now become leading exporters of mobile phones in the world," he said.

"We have emerged as the third largest startup hub in the world. We are home to 107 unicorns and 1.26 lakh recognized startups generating over 10 lakh jobs. In 2014, we only had 350 startups. The best part about this is that the new wave of startups is emerging from Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities with 47 per cent of startups coming from there. As a result, employment opportunities have grown manifold. On top of this, the economy is being expanded and the country is venturing into new and emerging sectors such as space, semiconductor manufacturing and EVs," he said, adding defence production, tech startups, and cybersecurity have all seen exponential growth, creating millions of direct and indirect jobs.

"Lastly, we are investing heavily on building next generation infrastructure. In this year's budget, we increased the capital expenditure to Rs 11.11 lakh crore. The speed and scale with which we are building roads, airports, railways, ports has been unprecedented. Don't you think this rapid infrastructure development does not have any bearing on employment generation?," he said.

The prime minister went on to cite data to support his claims.

According to PFLS (Periodic Labour Force Survey) data, the unemployment rate has halved - from 6.1 to 3.2 per cent.

"If you compare the EPFO Payroll data just between 2017-18 and 2022-23, the enrolment has increased by nearly 9 times! These are no small numbers," he said.

A recent report states that a total of 51.4 crore person-years of employment were generated between 2014 and 2024 because of governance-led interventions coupled with credit-led initiatives of the government.

"When the youth votes, they do take into consideration the momentum and opportunities India has built in the last 10 years. This is the reason why BJP has emerged as the natural choice for India's Yuva Shakti," he added.

Despite growing at the fastest pace among major peers, Indian economy hasn't generated enough jobs for its large and expanding young population, some economist and opposition leaders claim citing PLFS data showing the unemployment rate which stood at 3.4 per cent in 2013-14 only declining marginally to 3.2 per cent in 2022-23.

According to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, an economic think tank, the unemployment rate was 7.6 per cent in March.