Rethinking India's Growth-Obsessed Economic Policy: From Chasing Trillions to Creating Jobs

India's economic policy has long been obsessed with high growth rates, often sidelining other crucial goals like job creation, which has lagged significantly. In light of this slow job growth, critics are now pushing for a greater emphasis on employment, arguing it's vital for sustaining economic progress. However, this paper argues that these criticisms are misguided. The connection between job creation and growth is both theoretically and empirically weak. Moreover, these critiques mistakenly prioritize economic growth as the end goal despite its tenuous link to welfare metrics such as job creation. Instead, the paper calls for a fundamental shift in policy focus: from chasing growth targets to addressing concrete measures of economic well-being, such as robust job creation, to more effectively enhance societal welfare and tackle broader socioeconomic issues.