The picture of jobs in the country is worrying. In four years, new jobs in the private sector grew by 3.1% annually, while the GDP growth rate was around 4.5%. Compared to pre-Covid levels, employment declined by 8.2 lakh in 49.44% of 2,975 companies. 17.4 lakh new jobs were created in the remaining 1,504 companies. Overall the increase in jobs was only 9.2 lakh, according to the most recent research report of Bank of Baroda.
The study shows that growth in employment was 5.5% in Fiscal Year 2023 (FY23) on top of growth of 6.7% in FY 2022. However, in FY21, growth was virtually flat while in FY20 there was an increase of 2.1%. On a cumulative basis the growth for the 4 year period FY19-FY23 was 3.6%, which is still below the potential that goes with an economy growing at 6.5-7% per annum. For this 4-years period GDP growth averaged 3.6%. But a recovery is definitely apparent post covid and the lockdown.
According to the report, there were only 6 sectors including IT, finance and retail, in which job growth was more than the four-year average. However, job growth in 8 sectors was less than 2.5%. Jobs have decreased in companies in a total of 14 sectors.
Due to the economic recession, a lot of the companies had reduced jobs to save finances. To compensate for this, the companies have started to hire more post-covid lockdown. According to experts it will take time to reach employment levels of pre-Covid.
Job Growth since Pre-Covid (2019-2023) era:
- IT: 11.2%
- Finance: 9.1%
- Banking: 7.0%
- Bus Services: 5.5%
- Retail: 5.3%
- Insurance: 3.7%
A decline in the job market was seen in these sectors:
- Telecom: -16.1%
- Auto Ancillary: -8%
- Real Estate: -7.8%
- Mining: -4.4%
- Trading: -3.9%
- Raw oil: -3.4%