Key Points
New Delhi: Construction turned out to be the proverbial white knight for rural jobs in the financial year ended 31 March, when agriculture output growth sagged following patchy rains..
Despite the slowdown in the farm sector, only 27.72 million persons demanded work every month on average in FY24 under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), barely changed from 27.63 million in FY23..
Sachchidanand Shukla, group chief economist at Larsen & Toubro Ltd, said it is clear that a lot of construction activities and the pick-up in the real estate sector have been extremely supportive of job growth, including for semi-skilled and unskilled work..
Total employment availed in terms of person days till the afternoon of 31 March of FY24 stood at 3.085 billion, a little more than 4% increase over 2.956 billion in FY23, data from the rural development ministry showed..
Economic think tank National Council of Applied Economic Research's director general Poonam Gupta said in an analysis on Sunday that markers like Purchasing Managers' Index, GST receipts, core sector data and bank credit growth corroborate the optimistic GDP growth outlook of 7.6% for FY24, as per the second advance estimates..
