Amid all the claims of jobless growth during the term of Modi government, a survey conducted by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has found an increase of 13.9% in net job creations in the MSME sector over the last four years. In the largest ever survey specific to Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises, over one lakh firms of various sizes were included across various sectors and geographies.
CII is India’s premier business organisation, it is a non-government, not-for-profit, industry-led and industry-managed body. It has over 9,000 members, and indirect membership of over 3,00,000 enterprises through around 265 national and regional sectoral industry bodies.
“The survey establishes a growth of 3.3 per cent (compounded growth rate) per annum. When mapped to the macro level data sourced from Labour Bureau, this works out to an estimated additional job creation to the tune of 13.5 to 14.9 million per annum”, said Mr Rakesh Bharti Mittal, President of CII. The total strength of labour forces is estimated at about 45 crore in the year 2017-18 using data from labour bureau.
According to the survey, Hospitality & Tourism was the top job generating sector, followed by Textiles & Apparel, Metal Products, Machinery Parts and Transport & Logistic. “The survey also reveals that the Micro enterprises were the largest job creators in the past four years and will continue to be so in the next three years” CII Director General Mr Chandrajit Banerjee said.
The survey indicates the higher growth on employment generation will continue for next two-three years. It is expected that government initiatives like the 2 per cent interest rate subvention given to all MSMEs and Trade Receivable e-Discounting System (TReDS) implemented recently would drive future growth leading to more employment. “However, the CII survey highlights the need for greater hand-holding of the MSMEs who are still to take full advantage of these Government initiatives,” said Mr Banerjee.
The survey by CII shows that a majority of enterprises were able to fill vacancies under a month, indicating higher availability of skilled manpower. “The survey has indeed thrown up the most promising outcomes. There is a very healthy growth in employment among the MSME segment of industry and with the kind of disruptions and innovations that are likely to sweep through industry in terms of new technologies and practices, our skills development front is also undergoing rapid changes,” said the CII President.
CII conducted the survey in about n350 industrial locations in 28 states in India, and covered 105,347 MSMEs. The survey included queries on jobs creation, ease of filling up vacancies, impact of Government initiatives on jobs creation by the MSMEs.
