Drabu Counters Unemployment Figures, Says ‘Registered Job Seekers Represent Only Educated Youth Eyeing Govt Jobs’
Srinagar, Oct 30, KNT: Former Finance Minister Dr Haseeb Drabu on Thursday questioned the government’s latest unemployment figures, saying the official numbers reflect only registered educated job seekers and do not represent the actual magnitude of unemployment in Jammu and Kashmir.
Drabu said the government has put the number of unemployed youth in Jammu and Kashmir at 3.61 lakh, with two lakh in Kashmir and 1.5 lakh in Jammu, implying an unemployment rate of 4.3 percent. However, he clarified that the figure pertains only to educated youth registered with employment exchanges and seeking government jobs, not the total number of unemployed persons in the Union Territory.
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“The data refers to a narrow segment, those formally registered as job seekers for government employment. It excludes a vast majority of unregistered, self-employed, underemployed, and informal sector workers.”
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“In reality, the overall unemployment rate, especially among the educated youth, is far higher than what the official statistics suggest,” he added.
Drabu said the government must adopt a broader definition of employment and conduct a comprehensive labour force survey to capture the true scale of the problem. “Employment in J&K can’t be measured only by counting those waiting for government jobs. We must understand that most youth today are outside the formal registration system,” he observed.
The former Finance Minister emphasized that without reliable and inclusive data, no meaningful employment policy can be designed. “A serious and realistic assessment of joblessness is the first step toward addressing it. Anything less is self-deception,” Drabu said. [KNT]
