52 million non-agriculture jobs added during UPA tenure

Even as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congressclaim the employment generation in their respective regimes was better than the other, an office attached to the Planning Commission has come out with an explanation for the decline in jobs rate from 2004-05 to 2011-12.The Institute of Applied Manpower Research (IAMR) said on Monday that for the first time in independent India, there has been an absolute fall in the numbers employed in agriculture by 36.7 million from 2004-05 to 2011-12 because the number of non-agricultural jobs grew.Non-agricultural employment expanded by 52 million to reach 242 million in 2011-12, against 190 million in 2004-05. It expanded 7.5 million a year over 1999-2000 to 2004-5 and during 2004-5 and 2001-12. However, the number of people joining the labour force during 2000-2005 was 12 million a year, but fell to 5.5 million between 2004-05 and 2011-12. The result was that the rate of open unemployment fell, IAMR said in a paper, Why a jobs turnaround despite slowing growth.