New Delhi: With increasing population and shrinking share of agriculture in the overall economy, India needs to create good quality jobs in manufacturing and services sectors, Economic Survey 2012-13 released Wednesday said.
The annual document presented in Parliament by Finance Minister P. Chidambaram has a special chapter focusing on jobs.
It says the future holds promise for India if it seizes the demographic dividend, with nearly half of the additions to the labour force between 2011 and 2030 expected in the 30-49 age group.
"Because good jobs are both the pathway to growth as well as the best form of inclusion, India has to think of ways of enabling their creation," says the survey, adding new jobs are currently being added mainly in informal and low productivity sectors.
"India is creating jobs in industry but mainly in low productivity construction and not enough formal jobs in manufacturing, which typically are higher productivity. The high productivity service sector is also not creating enough job," it said.
"As the number of people looking for jobs rises, both because of the population dividend and because share of agriculture shrinks, these vulnerabilities will become important," said the document authored by Finance Ministry's Chief Economic Advisor Raghuram Rajan.
The economic survey tabled in Parliament a day ahead of the union budget is the report card on the state of the economy, with recommendations for the way forward.
The survey pointed out that overall employment in June 2012 over June 2011 increased by 6.94 lakh, with the highest increase recorded in IT and business process outsourcing sector with 4.44 lakh jobs, followed 1.70 lakh in textiles including apparels, 0.45 lakh in transport, 0.26 lakh in metals, 0.19 lakh in gems and jewellery and 0.11 lakh in automobiles.
Employment in handloom/powerloom and leather sectors declined marginally during that period, it said.
In export oriented units, employment at the overall level has increased by 5.81 lakh whereas in the non-exporting units, it has increased by 1.10 lakh during the period June 2012 over June 2011.