Why it doesn't feel like 7%

While employment growth decelerated from 2.6 per cent in 2016-17 to 2.2 per cent in 2017-18, growth in wages inched up a bit from 9.4 per cent in 2016-17 to 9.5 per cent in 2017-18

Growth in employment by companies slowed down a tad in 2017-18 to 2.2 per cent compared to the modest 2.6 per cent growth recorded in 2016-17.

Nevertheless, the growth in these two years is better than it was in the preceding two years -- 2014-15 and 2015-16 when employment by companies had initially contracted by 2.7 per cent and then crawled up by a meagre 0.5 per cent.

While employment growth decelerated from 2.6 per cent in 2016-17 to 2.2 per cent in 2017-18, growth in wages inched up a bit from 9.4 per cent in 2016-17 to 9.5 per