Employment in the country has increased by 36 per cent, from 47.15 crore in 2014-15 to 64.33 crore in 2023-24, reflecting improved job creation during NDA’s tenure in comparison to the UPA era, Union Labour Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said on Thursday.

Trends in the last two decades also highlighted that the job growth was 7 percent, from 44.23 per cent in 2003-04 to 47.15 percent in 2013-14, during Congress-led UPA regime, Mandaviya told reporters.

In the last one year, the Central government under Narendra Modi has created around 4.6 crore jobs in the country, data shared by Ministry of Labour showed.

“From 2004 to 2014, in the ten years of UPA, 2.9 crore jobs were created, and we in 2023-24 alone created 4.9 crore jobs. In 10 years, the NDA government generated 17.6 crore employment. This figure is drawn from RBI’s KLEMS report,” the Minister said in his attempt to counter the Opposition’s criticism on unemployment in the country.

Through the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI)’s KLEMS dataset was released in July, the Ministry highlighted that across sectors of agriculture, manufacturing and services, the employment growth figures were better during the NDA regime than that of in the UPA era in the last two decades.

The KLEMS (K: Capital, L: Labour, E: Energy, M: Materials and S: Services) database provides employment estimates at all India level including public and private sectors. 

What the numbers say

Employment in agriculture sector declined by 16 per cent between 2004 to 2014 under UPA government. On the contrary, it grew by 19 per cent between 2014 -2023 under Modi government, the Ministry pointed out.

Similarly, manufacturing sector grew by 15 per cent between 2014 to 2023 while it was just 6 percent between 2004 to 2014 under UPA regime.

Services sector saw the maximum employment growth at 36 per cent between 2014 to 2023, which is 11 per cent more than in the previous decade, said the Ministry.

Ministry sources also stated that the unemployment rate dropped from 6 per cent in 2017-18 to 3.2 per cent in 2023-24. At the same time, employment rate (or worker population ratio) grew from 46.8 per cent in 2017-18 to 58.2 per cent in 2023-24.

The labour force participation rate (LFPR) too grew from 49.8 per cent in 2017-18 to 60.1 per cent in 2023-24.

Labour Ministry sources also cited the ‘India Skill Report’ of 2014 and 2025 to show that the employability of graduate youth grew significantly from 33.95 per cent in 2013 to 54.81 per cent in 2024.

Growth in youth employment rate grew from 31.4 per cent in 2017-18 to 41.7 per cent in 2023-24. While the unemployment rate dropped from 17.8 per cent to 10.2 per cent in the same period.

Over 4.7 crore youth, within the age group of 18 to 28 years have joined Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) between September 2017 to September 2024.