Write one mains answer everyday, Revise Past Prelims questions everyday, Solve few CSAT problems everyday

24th December, 2015 (MAINS)

TODAYs ANSWER WRITING CHALLENGE FROM GS-III

Q1. The nature of economic growth in India in recent times is often described as a
jobless growth. Do you agree with this view? Give arguments in favour of your
answer. [12.5marks/2015/GS-3] 200 words.
Please write answer in the comments section.
Top Answer for this question was written by Shailesh

Answer:
Yes, I fully agree with the view that the nature of economic growth in India in
recent times has been a jobless growth. Let us have a look at the following points:
1. Unemployment rate in India is showing an increasing trend since 2011 when it
was 3.5%. The same rose to 3.6% in 2012, 3.7% in 2013 and so on.
2. The share of agriculture in total employment shrunk from 52% to 49% over this
period, with about 15 million workers migrating to towns and cities for work.
The manufacturing and services sector failed to absorb them fully. At present
there are 10.8 million unemployed workers.
3. According to the survey of Labour Bureau of 2013-14, only 60.5% of persons
aged 15 years and above who were available for the work for all the 12 months
during the reference period, were able to get work throughout the year.
4. Unemployment rate of the youth is a major concern. The unemployment rate
for the persons aged 18-29 years and holding a graduation degree and above is
28 percent.
5. Forty percent of the graduating students from engineering colleges run the risk
of being unemployed.
6. So, we can clearly see that despite of tremendous economic growth of nation, it
has not been able to produce the jobs as required and unemployment has
become a social catastrophe.
 Write one mains answer everyday, Revise Past Prelims questions everyday, Solve few CSAT problems everyday

Second Best Answer for same question was written by Baba JI

Answer:

As per ASSOCHAM report, about five million jobs were lost between 2004-05 and
2009-10, paradoxically during the time when India witnessed the highest and
consistent eight per cent growth in its economy, throwing a big question whether
growth should be linked to employment generation, and about 13 million youth are
entering the labour force every year which further increase the gap for the
employment and growth.

Reasons:-

1. India's economic transition has not followed normal path. Normally countries
shift from agrarian to manufacturing and then finally service sector. But India
jumped directly from Agriculture to Service sector led growth. It has its own
negative outcomes. In last 2 decades the employment growth rate haven't
matched economic growth rate. The main reason is that every sector has its
own employment elasticity i.e. employment per unit GDP growth rate.
2. In India agriculture sector provides employment to 60% people whereas it
contributes only 12% of GDP. It is marred with disguised employment due to
lack of modernization, investment, fragmentation of land.
3. In services sector, which contributed 67.3 per cent (at constant price) to the
GDP but employed only 27 per cent of total working population in 2013-14.
4. Middle level jobs which are the bulk are being replaced by automation.
5. Lack of skilled workforce, infrastructure and coherent education system which
are bottlenecks in industrial growth. Thus joblessness.
6. The economic growth skipped manufacturing sector largely which could have
provided employment to large number. Experts argue that the growth of
manufacturing will be the key for growth in income and employment for
multiple reasons. For every job created in the manufacturing sector, three
additional jobs are created in related activities. The other is that manufacturing
in India is scalable and has higher labour absorption in comparison to services.
Government has recently launched SKILL INDIA, MAKE IN INDIA programme
Write one mains answer everyday, Revise Past Prelims questions everyday, Solve few CSAT problems everyday

majorly to boost employment. MSMEs are needed to be focused providing

them credit, tax relief, market linkages for better growth.