Damned Lies And Statistics

Why the Modi government is obscuring data on unemployment / Economy

- Himanshu

Narendra Modi rose to power on the promise of creating 20 million jobs. Contrary to expectations, the past four years have seen a record decline in employment creation. According to the latest data collected by the International Labour Organisation, the number of unemployed people is expected to rise to 18.9 million this year, from 18.6 million in 2018. In an interview to the right-wing magazine Swarajya, the prime minister said, “more than a lack of jobs, the issue is a lack of data on jobs.” As part of a larger mistrust of existing unemployment statistics, a task force instituted at Modi’s behest in 2017 scrapped the Employment–Unemployment Survey—carried out by the National Sample Survey Office every five years since Independence—and replaced it with a completely new data-gathering methodology. As a result, there is a significant data gap on job creation since 2012.

The EUS case is only one more example in the recent past of independent statistical agencies and data being delayed, discredited or manipulated for political purposes. For instance, the figures on the impact of demonetisation, which dealt a body blow to the economy, took almost a year to come to light, being released well after the Uttar Pradesh assembly election in 2017. Similarly, the routine procedure of updating the base year for the calculation of economic growth resulted in two divergent back series being produced. The autonomous National Statistical Commission found that growth had slowed under the Modi government, while the government’s Central Statistics Office and the NITI Aayog revised the methodology used to measure national income to conclude that growth had been slower under the previous United Progressive Alliance government. The resulting controversy raised questions about the integrity of the series, and led to claims of unnecessary political interference by the NITI Aayog.