Union Budget 2018: Real-time monitoring of jobs on anvil

New Delhi: Boosting job growth is likely to be a key focus of Union Budget 2018-19 as the government looks to create more jobs in employment-intensive sectors like food processing, dairy farming and horticulture. 

At present, the government is said to be concerned over the fact that a bulk of the existing jobs are in the non-employment intensive sectors like finance and real estate. 

Government think-tank Niti Aayog is said to have indicated to the Prime Minister’s Office and the finance ministry that the skill development programme needs to focus more on training a large number of job-seekers, as availability of trained manpower is the key to job creation. 

Real-time monitoring and reporting of employment data is also something the Budget may address, sources added, hinting that a mechanism may be proposed to increase accuracy in data related to job creation. The feedback received by finance minister and PMO is that in order to generate jobs in employment-intensive sectors, especially agriculture, the focus has to be on encouraging start-ups.