Jobless growth has slipped into ‘job-loss’ growth: Manmohan Singh
NEW DELHI: The “jobless growth” has slipped into “job-loss growth”, which, together with rural indebtedness and urban chaos, has made the growing number of aspirational youths restless, former prime minister Manmohan Singh said Sunday, as he hit out at the government for failing to uplift the economy to its potential.
In his convocation address at the New Delhi Institute of Management here, he said the “grave agrarian crisis, the declining employment opportunities, the pervasive environmental degradation, and above all the divisive forces at work” were some of the challenges facing the nation.
“The jobless growth slipping into job-loss growth, together with rural indebtedness and urban chaos have made the growing aspirational youths restless,” he said. “Suicides of farmers and frequent farmer agitations reflect the structural imbalances in our economy which call for serious in-depth analysis and political will to address them,” he added.
The attempts at creating additional job opportunities in the industrial sector have failed as industrial growth is not picking up fast enough, he alleged.
“Well thought-out policy and implementation strategies are required to stimulate industrial and commercial sectors. Kneejerk reactions and off-the-cuff announcements of grandiose schemes and unproductive projects have manifestly failed to uplift the economy to its potential,” he said.