In 2007, the Prime Minister’s economic council headed by C Rangarajan projected full

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employment for India by 2010. The council estimated that since India was growing at 9 per cent plus, the economy would create more jobs every year than the number of people joining the labour force.

Achieving this blissful state may have been delayed as India was derailed from the high growth path in 2008-09 in the wake of the global meltdown. But it can look forward to getting there soon if the economy climbs on to the double-digit growth expressway by 2012, as is being projected for forecast agencies.

The council had found that since 2001-05, for every 1 per cent growth in GDP, employment increase has been less than 0.5-0.48 per cent. At that time it had said that a 9 per cent GDP growth in the 2007-08 financial year would lead to a growth in employment by 3.6 per cent.

As Rangarajan had explained -- work for all, in the case of full employment, would not necessarily imply quality employment for all. There could still be many Indians, employed but not earning what is called a living wage. That means the so called full employment would not necessarily eliminate poverty altogether.

What works in India’s favour is that the country is investing at the same rate as China, which is approximately 40 per cent of GDP and its labour force is growing about 1.8 per cent per year faster than China. Since productivity is directly linked to growth prospects, a 10 per cent GDP growth would see a creation of more productive and gainful employment.

According to the planning commission, over the longer period up to 2016–17, spanning the eleventh and twelfth plan periods, the additional employment opportunities that would be created are estimated at 116 million as compared to 71 million during the 11-year period from 1993–94 to 2004–05. Since the labour force will increase by 85 million in this period, a substantial part of the surplus of the labour force that exists at the commencement of the eleventh Plan could get absorbed into gainful employment by the end of the period. The unemployment rate at the end of the twelfth Plan period is projected to fall to a little over 1 per cent.