Congress Critiques Government Job Creation Claims

The Congress party has dismissed the government's claims of creating eight crore employment opportunities between 2021 and 2024 and the addition of 6.2 crore net subscribers to the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) as 'half-truths'. Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh criticized the government's expansive definition of employment, which includes unpaid household work, arguing that this does not reflect actual job creation. He highlighted that, despite claims of job growth, many sectors, such as education, experienced significant job losses during the COVID-19 pandemic, while agriculture misleadingly reported a gain of 1.8 crore jobs. Furthermore, Ramesh pointed out that the EPFO data does not accurately represent employment levels, as it only accounts for the organized sector, which constitutes less than 10% of total employment. The party contends that the economic indicators presented by the government do not capture the quality of jobs being created, with a trend towards low-productivity informal work. The Congress maintains that the period from 2014 to 2024 has been characterized by 'jobloss growth'.