According to former finance minister P Chidambaram, an economy growing slower than earlier cannot be said to be a job destructing economy, it has to be a job generating one. But according to a commerce ministry survey of some 121 exporting firms this does not seem to be the case.

The survey reveals that in the three months till October, the firms, from across 12 sectors, shed 65,000 jobs due to lost orders and cash losses. The finding does not come as a surprise because October was the worst month, with exports declining 15 per cent.

Oscar Fernandes, union labour minister, told Parliament today that over 65,500 people in the export sector lost their jobs between August and October this year due to global economic recession. The survey included export firms from textiles, leather, engineering, gems and jewellery, handcraft, food and food processing, minerals and marine products sectors, he said. Fernandes was responding to a question on the impact of the global economic recession on employment.

He said that the government has initiated several measures to spur growth to overcome the crisis.He added that the initiatives include RBI measures to enhance liquidity in the market and in addition, an economic package comprising additional spending,excise duty cuts and interest subvention.

According to the survey, Tata Motors and Ashok Leyland are some of the bigger players to have reported job losses. Others are said to be coping by reducing working days or hours. One of the largest garment exporters has reportedly said they have laid off 5,400 people and shut down four units. 

According to the survey ceramic units in Morbi have laid off 35,000 workers. The gems and jewellery sector has also taken a hit with a leading player from Surat laying off 680 persons.
However, the survey seems to have missed out several regions that are known export hubs. Both Tirupur and Ludhiana find no mention even though these are garment exporting hubs. According to ananlysts such omissions detract from the credibility of surveys as figures of job losses quoted by export lobbies become a matter of opinion rather than fact, resulting in misdirected distress relieving initiatives.