A blueprint for job growth - Urban Employment Guarantee, an idea whose time has come

This article appeared in the DNA opinion page on 29th of September, 2017

The decibel levels have suddenly shot up. The lament of jobless growth is a long-debated one. The last quarterly GDP growth print (at 5.7 per cent) has now seemingly thrown up risks of significant economic slowdown too. To be sure, quarterly GDP numbers are estimates that are prone to massive revisions in the best of times, and we have a still-stabilising method of national income accounting. The issue is even starker for jobs, where almost no standardised, empirically robust data is available on a high frequency basis to make sure determinations.

However, policymaking cannot wait for perfect data. What is certainly verifiable are some indicators that point towards enduring weakness the economy. Capacity utilisation of Indian industry has hovered around the early 70 per cent range for many quarters now (RBI Capacity Utilisation Survey shows a slight decline in Mar 2017 from Mar 2016, at 74.1 per cent). Aggregate credit growth, while much higher than the oft-quoted bank credit growth, is in high single digit levels, and at the margin lower than previous year. Topline sales (and profit) growth numbers of listed firms display the same trend — and are generally undershooting beginning-of-the-year forecasts. On jobs, with the general collapse of private investment (especially Real Estate, the biggest jobs-creating sector), and struggles in the big employment-intensive services (IT and Financial Services) — it is safe to assume that we have a problem.

What should the policymaking response be? While there is never a dearth of ideas in India, is there something that can boost growth and generate additional employment at the same time, and quickly? Often, lessons are closer home than we realise. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme (NREGA) provides an interesting template. NREGA by design is an employment generating programme, and by many accounts was a big factor in India quickly bouncing back from the effects of the Global Financial Crisis in 2008.

There is, therefore, merit in considering a National Urban Employment Programme (NUEP) on similar lines. A well-funded NUEP will provide a soak for the urban and semi-urban unemployed, and provide an immediate Keynesian consumption boost to the economy. In principle, the consumption boost should enhance capacity utilisation levels, and hasten a revival of private investment, which is really the big driver of growth and employment. There are three big questions to be addressed though.

First, why a cash transfer programme (which is what employment programmes are), and not enhanced infrastructure expenditure? A couple of reasons. First, NUEP-type programmes are quicker on execution than large infrastructure projects, and hence would tend to have more immediate macro impact. And second, this provides for an immediate employment safety net to the most vulnerable, again something that would come only with a time lag in an infrastructure investment programme. Above all, some of the traditional assumptions around employment-intensity of infrastructure spending have been revisited in the last few years — it takes far fewer people to build a 100 km of highways than used to be the case a decade back.

Second, what would be the sort of jobs created under this programme? NREGA is designed around basic earthworks projects in rural areas, targeting employment for primarily untrained, barely literate farm labour. The workforce available in urban areas is likely to be better educated, and equipped to be trained for more.

They can, therefore, be deployed in auxiliary units for a range of urban services — municipals, schools, traffic control, even elements of basic policing – with a certain amount of training. India suffers from very large capacity gaps in all these areas.

For example, there is one police officer for every 720 Indians. The UN-prescribed standard is one for every 454. While a semi-permanent workforce with rudimentary training cannot be used for cutting-edge frontline policing duties, they could certainly be used for basic administrative and support services to enhance capacity.

Third, and perhaps most important, what should be the size of this programme? Targeting to create how many jobs? As a benchmark, the allocation to NREGA in the current year is Rs 48,000 crore. Let us assume that NUEP has a similar outlay. At an average wage of Rs 1.2 lakh/job (the approximate level at which a single wage-earner can ensure a family of 4 is above the urban poverty level), and assuming a 20 per cent support cost (ie, part of the outlay not accruing to wages, NREGA average is 30-35 per cent), this would create around 32 lakh jobs. India has around 1 crore new entrants into the jobs market every year. 32 lakh vacancies-on-demand will create a material tightness in the labour market to make a dent in wages and opportunities.

The last point would be, is it affordable? The amount in question would represent around 0.3-0.4 per cent of GDP. In a scenario where the banking system is flush with post-Demonetisation liquidity, that amount of excess government borrowing can be easily funded. It will have an electrifying message politically, while giving an instant consumption boost to the economy, with all-round multiplier effects. It is an idea whose time has come!