The Congress on Monday questioned the government’s claims on job creation figures, adding that no amount of spin-doctoring can take away the fact that there has been “employment growth” in 2014-2024.

This is referring to the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) LEMS (acronym for Capital, Labour, Energy, Materials and Services) data report released in July, which said that the last three About 80 crore new jobs were created in four years. The year

Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi had cited the same report to refute the opposition’s claims of mass unemployment.

Citing the contents of the report, the Congress claimed that the current dispensation has termed unpaid household work as “employment” for work done by women, which is not a new job creation.

“A major part of the employment growth claim is recording the unpaid domestic work done by women as employment. This is not the creation of new jobs”, he said.

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The “80 million new jobs” headline also ignores the debate over the quality of jobs. Amid the poor economic climate, the share of salaried, formal employment in the labor market has declined. Workers are moving to less productive informal and agricultural jobs, which KLEMS is capturing as job creation,” Congress communications chief Jairam Ramesh said in a statement.

He added that KLEMS data shows employment growth during the COVID-19 pandemic years, when large parts of the economy were completely shut down.

“While key sectors like education saw 1.2 million fewer jobs in 2020-2021, a total of 1.8 crore “jobs” were created in agriculture,” he said.

Terming low-wage employment as an economic betrayal, the senior Congress leader argued that “factory workers, teachers, miners who returned home during Covid-19 and had to return to farming and agricultural labour, have to work in agriculture. is registered as a “Job”.

“This shift to low-productivity, low-paying jobs is an economic hoax, which the government is touting as a success,” he said.

Questioning the Employees Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) data, a key parameter of job creation in the formal sector, the Congress said that “while the government has shown record employment growth, Citing an increase of 6.2 crore net users in the EPFO ​​database, EPFO ​​tracks only the organized sector or less than 10 per cent of total employment.”

The Congress pointed to the Supreme Court’s 2020 judgment which asked the EPFO ​​to include contract workers in any establishment employing more than 20 people and as a result.

“A substantial number of workers who were already employed are now appearing in the EPFO ​​data – these are not new hires”, said Ramesh.

Continuing his criticism of the government’s alleged spin-doctoring, Ramesh said the unemployment rate in the country remains high.

“However much statistical magic they engage in, the truth remains: Unemployment rate of India Today it is the highest it has been in 45 years, with the unemployment rate for young graduates at 42 percent”, he said.

A reply is awaited from the government and will be updated whenever a copy is received.