New Delhi: China's fast-paced economic growth is no longer a model for India to follow, rather India is today racing neck-and-neck with the world's fourth largest economy and has even managed to outpace the dragon in certain areas.
This was confirmed by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in its Employment Outlook 2007 report, which said India outpaced the Communist giant in creating the maximum number of jobs among the BRIC nations between 2000 and 2005. The report was released on Tuesday.
In fact, India created the maximum number of jobs among the BRIC (Brazil-Russia-India-China) nations. The four countries together created over 22 million net new jobs on an average per year during 2000 and 2005, which is more than five times the net employment gains recorded in the OECD area as a whole over the same period.
Paris-based OECD comprises 30 developed countries including the US, UK, France, Germany and Japan.
According to the report, India generated 11.3 million net new jobs per year on an average during this period, higher than 7 million in China, 2.7 million in Brazil and 0.7 million in Russia. In contrast, the average was 3.7 million in the OECD area as a whole.
India also had the lowest percentage of jobless people among the BRIC nations, the report says. The country's unemployment rate stood at 6 per cent in 2005. In contrast, China's unemployment rate was at 8.3 per cent, Russia 7.9 per cent and Brazil 9.3 per cent during 2005.
The report, however, warns that despite the rapid net employment gains recorded in the recent years, under-employment is still sizeable in the BRICs.
"First, some groups are significantly under-represented in the labour market. In China, while the urban employment rate among men is higher than in 19 OECD countries, the urban employment rate among women is relatively low. Below-OECD employment rates are visible also among for female workers and youth in India, among youth in the Russian Federation and among older workers in all the BRICs, except Brazil," the report says.
The famous-four emerging nations club of BRIC account for about 42 per cent of world population and 45 per cent of the world's total workforce. This is far more than the 19 per cent share of the 30-member club of developed economies for both population and labour force, OECD said.
The significant net employment gains have translated into higher employment rates in the BRIC region. The employment rates have gone up in Brazil, India and Russia, while it has remained high in China.
But the employment to population ratio was also lowest in India, the world's second most populous nation after China, at 50.5 per cent in 2005. In comparison, this ratio stood at between 66-71 per cent in the other three countries.
(With agency inputs)
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