Bahutva Karnataka: 42% of grads are jobless despite BJP promises of 2cr employment annually

Although the BJP had pledged to generate 2 crore jobs a year before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, 42% of graduates under 25 remain jobless, according to Bahutva Karnataka, a forum for justice and peace that has assessed the performance of the current BJP government. Bahutva Karnataka representatives stated that as the Lok Sabha elections draw near, they will be releasing a series of reports dubbed “Guarantee Checks” that evaluate the claims made by the incumbent government about its performance. They will do this by presenting official claims and contrasting them with evidence from official or other reliable sources.

The first report in the series, which evaluated the current government’s employment, earnings, and overall progress, was made public on Monday. According to the forum, the proportion of self-employed people in the workforce increased between 2011–12 and 2022–23. Currently, over two thirds of women and over half of men work for themselves. Since they are unable to find other paying jobs, more women are being forced to work as unpaid helpers, such as doing unpaid labor on family farms or in small businesses, as a result of stagnant household wages among the impoverished, the research said.

“An expert committee on wages, initiated by the Ministry of labor and Employment, Government of India, led by Anoop Satpathy in 2019, said that the national minimum floor wages in India should be at least Rs 375 per day which translates to Rs 3,050 per week in 2022–2023,” the report continued. The BJP claims that the national minimum wages have increased by 42%. Almost 30 crore workers earn less than this cutoff.

“Over the last ten years, there has been a notional 60% growth in GDP per capita. The research also said that while the earnings of the other groups are declining, the top 10% of the population’s income share has been rising, reaching 60% now.