MSMEs ensured 14 pct growth in economy over last 4 years says new industry survey

Job creation by the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) sector saw a growth of 13.9 per cent in the past four years, claims an industry survey. The findings are contrary to the official and other industry data which show that there was massive job losses since the note-bank and GST implementation in this very sector. While private sector economic think-tank has found that as many as 13 million jobs were lost in 2018 alone, the official NSSO data show that unemployment rate touched a 46- year high in 2018.

According to a CII survey among over 1 lakh MSMEs, there has been a 13.9 per cent increase net jobs additions (or 3,32,394 new jobs created), over the past four years, which is a 3.3 per cent increase per annum in these four years. The survey, that covered 1,05,347 MSMEs of varying sizes, across sectors, located in about 350 industrial centres spread across the country, indicates that micro enterprises were the largest job creators in the past four years and will continue to be so in the next three years.

The put the findings in context, the survey mapped the jobs figures against publicly available macro-level data sourced from the Labour Bureau (for total workforce). "Given that the total workforce size according to the Labour Bureau is estimated at 450 million, the overall job additions work out to 13.514.9 million per annum," it said.

The top job generating sectors were hospitality & tourism followed by textiles & apparel and metal products, during the past four years. Machinery parts and transport and logistics were the next significant job creators, it showed. In terms of states, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Telangana were the largest job creators, while in case of exporters, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Telangana topped.

"There is an expectations of higher growth on employment for the next three years," the survey said. This optimism emanates from the fact that government initiatives like the 2 per cent interest subvention given to all MSMEs and trade receivables e-discounting system (TReDS) would drive future growth leading to more employment, the report said.

(With inputs from agencies.)