Increasing Opportunities by making Job creation central to our economic model… Accord high priority to the growth of manufacturing, so that we can create enough jobs in the country.

This entry begins with a correction, because the claim most often attributed to the 2014 manifesto is not in it. We read the manifesto in full. There is no promise of "two crore jobs a year", and no employment number of any kind. That figure comes from campaign speeches of the period, and a fact-check that pins it to the manifesto would be checking the wrong document.

What the manifesto actually commits to is this, under its economic revival section: "Increasing Opportunities by making Job creation central to our economic model." In its manufacturing section it adds that the party will "Accord high priority to the growth of manufacturing, so that we can create enough jobs in the country", and elsewhere that "Focus will be on job creation and entrepreneurship, in both rural and urban areas."

Those are statements of priority, not targets. There is no number to miss and no date to miss it by, which is why this verdict is unverifiable rather than delivered or not. It would be as wrong to score it a success as a failure.

What can be put on the record is what the government's own measurement shows, so readers can judge the priority by its results. The Periodic Labour Force Survey for July 2023 to June 2024 — the ministry's annual report, based on 1,01,920 households and 4,18,159 persons — reports a headline unemployment rate in usual status of 3.2 per cent, for persons of all ages and for those aged 15 and above alike.

That number needs two companions to be read honestly. The first is participation: the labour force participation rate was 45.1 per cent, meaning most people of working age were not in the labour force at all, and unemployment is only measured among those who are. For women the gap is starker — 35.5 per cent participation in rural India and 22.3 per cent in urban.

The second is education. Among persons aged 15 and above whose highest education is secondary level or above, the unemployment rate was 7.1 per cent — 5.9 per cent for men and 10.6 per cent for women. The pattern in the same table runs the opposite way to intuition: 0.2 per cent for those not literate, 0.6 per cent up to primary, 1.6 per cent at middle school, then 7.1 per cent at secondary and above. Unemployment in India rises with education, which is a statement about the kind of jobs being created rather than the number.

Worker population ratio — the share of the whole population actually working — was 43.7 per cent, and for young people aged 15 to 29 it was 41.7 per cent.

The manifesto made job creation a stated priority and did not commit to a figure. Our verdict is unverifiable, and the figures above are the primary record against which readers can form their own view.