 One of the big mysteries of elections in India, which actually baffles a lot of people, is why is it that despite the Modi government's terrible record with employment, it still manages to come back to power? Why is it that the BJP, despite having a bad record with generating jobs in states like Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa, whatever you take, it still manages to come back to power? And generally the answer is polarization. People say the polarization is so strong that it overrides all other considerations, especially economic considerations like jobs. In this show, I'm going to tell you why that is incorrect and not true. And I'll start with some data in terms of what was the annual average rate of job growth under different governments. So let's start with what it was under, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and that was between 1998 to 2004. I'm taking all six years. The average was 2.3%. As you can see, this is RBI's assessment, RBI's data. This is not private data. And what happened in 2004 looks of elections? Atal Bihari Vajpayee lost. Everyone knows that. And what happened when Manmohan Singh ruled in UPA 1, which was 2004 to 2009, the annual job growth rate was just 0.8%. And what happened in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections? Manmohan Singh came back to power with more seats. The Congress won more seats. Now let's just look at UPA 2, 2009 to 2014. The jobs growth rate actually increased marginally to about 1%. And in the last one year, which is 2013-14, the growth rate in jobs was 3%, which is the highest that one sees in RBI's data which begins from the early 90s. And what happened to the Manmohan Singh government? Manmohan Singh lost and didn't lose, just lose, lost very badly. And then Narendra Modi became Prime Minister. Here, our RBI claims data is only till 2014-18, between 2014-18. We don't have updated data yet. The annual job growth rate is minus 0.2%, which means the jobs actually declined in this period. Let me take the data from CMI, the private source. And CMI's data I'm comparing May 2016 to May 2019 because CMI started collecting data from 2016. In these three years, in the Modi regime, the first jobs actually declined at the rate of almost 1% per year. And yet in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Narendra Modi came back with a record win. So let's put all of these together. You can see it on your screen that every time there has been a better job growth rate, the government has actually lost. I'm not saying these are correlated. I'm just saying that there is no relationship between jobs and a government coming back to power. Let's now look at what happened in Uttar Pradesh. You know that Yogi Adityanath has just won the UP elections and won it with almost as many numbers. Maybe a reduced majority but still has performed extremely well. The annual job growth rate and here again I'm taking CMI's data and I'm comparing September, December 2016 to September, December 2021. This is the latest data, state data that we have. I'm taking a five year period. The job growth rate is negative again, minus 0.6% and yet Yogi Adityanath comes back to power. So you can clearly see that there is no clear link between jobs growth or even increased unemployment and victory by any party. We saw that Narendra Modi and Yogi Adityanath despite bad job records have come back. UP1 came back with a relatively poor job growth record as well. The reason for that is that when you look at jobs, when you look at unemployment data and look at it closely, you will realize that it is a very complex issue. So let me put out some data for you and most of this is going to be CMI's data. The latest as I said, I'm taking a long period, September to December 2021. Here it is, total population and look, I'm going to take the period between 25 to 59 years when people actually settle down and look for jobs. Although the working age population is anyone who's more than 15 years, between 15 to 24 you can say that people or everyone does not look for jobs and when they do get a job, they might not like it, they don't want to settle for it. So I'm going to look at 25 to 59 years of age and look at what I have. Total population between the 25 to 59 year age bracket is 668 million, right? In India these are CMI's estimates, obviously there's been no new census. Those who want to work and this is a special category, which means those who actively are seeking work but also those who will work if they are given some work, that is about 367 million. Actively seeking work, that is about 362 million, which means that 5 million people are not actively seeking work but they will work if you give it to them. How many people are employed within this? 344 million and that gives you, means that 18 million people in India are unemployed between the age of 25 to 59. When you go above 65, those who are seeking work are almost all employed. So above 60 years of age, the employment rate is actually extremely good. Now that does not actually tell us the entire picture, why am I saying this? I'm saying this because when we look at the picture itself, we should actually concentrate on men because in India women have a very very low labour participation rate which means that very few of them actively seek work or even go out, want to work. Most of them do not have any of time to go out of their house and work because they have so much work inside the house. So the people who would be frustrated because they don't have jobs are going to be men and more often than not if they don't have jobs is going to be this 25 to 60 category men because before that they have some hope, they're studying and after that they're almost retiring. So this is the age group that we are trying to look at. Male population within this 25 to 15 years age group is 333 million. Out of that, those who want to work, again as I said those who want to work includes those who are actively seeking work but also those who will work if they get work. That's 323 million. Almost everyone is actively seeking work amongst men within that age group. How many are employed? 317 million out of them have jobs which means that only 6 million men, 6 million male within that age group, the crucial age group of 25 to 60 actually are unemployed and that works to just a 2% unemployment rate. Most unemployment is actually amongst young people between the age of 19 to 24 and of course those below that 15 to 19 as well and this unemployment does not necessarily show up as electoral anger because there is hope that they will get some job and the number of people looking for jobs is not that high because many of them are actually studying as well. Now let's look at these 6 million people that I talked about. If these 6 million people were to be divided into Lok Sabha seats, it just comes to about 11,000 men per Lok Sabha seat because if we look at the women it will be much, much less fewer those who want to work but don't have work. So that is one of the crucial reasons why unemployment does not become a big issue in Lok Sabha elections because there just aren't enough people who are unemployed who have a voice who actively will vote against the government because they are unemployed and that is a crucial thing. Now as I told you, within this group, the number of people who want to work and are seeking work is one number. There are many who actually aren't even looking for work. Even if you say when CMI asks them that if you are given work, will you work? Their answer is no and I am looking at only men here and look at this number here, made 25 to 59 years, unemployed, which is the blue bar that you see is about 6 million but those who don't want to work, they are neither seeking work nor are they going to work if they are given is 10 million. This is people above the age of 25 and within the age of 59. Some of them might have problems, physical disabilities, some of them might be in higher studies but that number is not going to be very high. So the number of unemployed is actually lower than number of those who won't work even if they are given work. That is about 10 million people. Why is it important here? Because these people who will not work even if they are given work are people who are living at a subsistence level. And as I have said before, the Modi government's political economy is a subsistence economics, it is subsistence politics which means that there are people extremely poor. They have lived in broken huts, hovels, if they are given a little bit of money to repair their roof, if they are given a little bit of money to buy a little bit of daal or some vegetables which comes into their accounts and they get free rice, wheat and some other things along with that, then they are going to be more or less content with what they are getting because it is not automatic that everyone will want to work. In societies which are still not entirely modernized, which ours is as well, there will be that one to three percent of people who will not want to work or are vagrants, beggars. These are people who would not be counted as employed. This is a significant part of the population. And when you go down the scale, if people who barely have very low income, barely get work, they do not always get enough employment, if these people are given free rations, if they are given enough to just survive, then they are not necessarily angry with the government. In fact, as we know, if the packets of free rice, free daal, free sugar, free vegetable oil comes with the photographs of the prime minister and the chief minister, which we have seen as it happened in Uttar Pradesh. It used to happen in the south quite often as well. Then it is very likely that they will be considered the prime minister and the chief minister as a direct benefactor and they as beneficiaries. They will have a sense of obligation towards the prime minister and the chief minister. And that is what the BJP would rather do because there is a direct... If when people get jobs, they don't necessarily thank the government, even if the government policies, even if the government's policies have created conditions for them to get jobs. So that is why employment is not an issue. Yes, you will see that there are certain cases where people do agitate, people do go and vote against the government or vote for the opposition. And that does happen. But that unemployed number is so small that it makes no difference to elections. That's the show today. Keep watching NewsClick. Like us, subscribe to our channel and do share this video as well.