Only the low-skilled lost jobs: Ravi Shankar Prasad

Countering the criticism that demonetisation caused job loss, Union IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said yesterday that only those who were not able to advance their skills with time lost their jobs in the aftermath of the note ban, The Times of India reported.

According to Prasad jobs and employment are different and although people with low level skills lost jobs, according to the minister, the government's drive towards creating a digital India with a focus on digital payments, has led to job creation and new job roles.

"Under the Mudra scheme, we gave loans worth Rs 4 lakh crore to 8 crore people,'' Prasad said. The borrowers included small traders, persons from minority communities including scheduled castes and scheduled tribes; if each of the borrowers had employed at least one person, "4 crore jobs were created automatically," the IT minister was quoted as saying by Times of India.

Information Technology industry-body NASSCOM had earlier said that employees would have to ''reskill or perish'' in the IT sector as newer technologies come up every day. The body has refuted reports of a layoff trend in the industry owing to automation and cost-cutting measures.

Prasad said that according to NASSCOM, around 6 lakh jobs were created during the tenure of the BJP at the centre.