Job Crisis In India: An Explainer

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Table of Contents

• Introduction

Unemployment means there is shortage of jobs for those people who are able or willing
to work at the current wage.

India has been experiencing a severe unemployment problem which is confirmed by
various organization who are doing research on jobs in the country. Millions have lost
their job after the covid 19 pandemic came. There is a job crisis in India

But before that also the demonetization of 2016 paralysed the informal sector and
industrial output fell.

The quick implementation of goods and service tax in 2017 proved to be another reason
that reduced the speed of economy and which has impacted the jobs. The pandemic only
worsened the misery.

• Observation

Between 1993-94 and 2018-19 India’s agriculture share in workforce came down from
61.9% to 41.4 % .All this happened in just 25 years.

According to Amit Basole, who is the head of the centre for sustainable employment at
Azim Primji University in Bengaluru. He states that India’s farm sector have to be using
33-34% of the overall personnel 41.4% won’t be a good sized deviation from the average.

• Government and Unemployment

As the ongoing political regime finishes its eight years of governance, a recently released
survey through the use of network connection platform nearby circles states that Prime
Minister Narendra Modi popularity is at its maximum since the beginning of pandemic.¹

The main 2 things which are awful in his governance was growing inflation and the
country of joblessness , with 47% of these surveyed accepting that the government has
not been able to address the latter problem adequately.

The disappointment among the India’s youngster is visible from the vast protest that took
place in January this year, in reply to the filing of seats for jobs in the Indian railways.
Around 10 million candidates applied for the nearly 40,000 advertised jobs in Central
public sector enterprises- a showing large number in itself.

To maintain pace with the a youth bulge, India should make something like 9 crore New
Non- farm jobs by 2030, According to a 2020 report by Mickinsey global institute.² That
would require an 8-8.5 per according to the report.

In today’s time there are 3 broad categories of unemployed in India: unemployed youth
and job seekers, youth who are unemployable and youth who are highly educated and
who have lost their jobs. These three categories together have caused unemployment
crises.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi at his election campaign promised to create millions of
jobs.
He is under pressure to show that his government is making progress in his promise. And
because of this promise he announced in June that 10 lacs central government vacancies
would be filled in 18 months.

file7kri5amzobrrp1sop7t 1105426 1651378200 — Via- Deccan Herald

• Nationwide occurrence

The latest information by centre for monitoring Indian economy ( CMIE) asserts that the
unemployment rate was highest in Haryana at 34.5% followed by Rajasthan at 28.8%,
Bihar at 21.1% and Jammu and Kashmir at 15.6%.

According to the data accumulated by the world bank The labor force participation
(LPFR) decreased from 46% in 2020 to 40% in 2022.

The high level of youth unemployment despite a very low labour force participation does
not bode well for the country’s overall growth.

The Number of unemployed graduates was 19.3% in 2021, the pandemic seemed to have
made matters worse ( compared to 14.9% in 2019 and 15.1% in 2020).

In contrast as of April, the unemployment rate for graduates was less than 10% in states
like Gujarat, Karnataka, and Odisha.

Karnataka is the only state that has managed to keep graduate unemployment below 11%
since 2026, it was only 6.1%.³

6 crore people have given up and said that they don’t even want a job.
India’s total employment fell by a massive 13 million to 390 million in June 2022
compared to 403 million in may , the lowest level since July last year.

This is largely due to the decline of 8 million jobs in rural India on the back of sluggish
Monsoon followed by loss of 2.5 million salaried jobs to center for monitoring Indian
economy said.

RHAGZ919 1620066069089 — Job crisis in India

• Causes of Unemployment

Large Population
Lack of professional abilities or low instructive levels of the functioning
population
Labor intensive sectors experiencing the slowdown in private investment
speciallys after demonetization
The low productivity in the agriculture sector plus the lack of alternative
opportunities for agriculture workers that makes transition among the three
sectors difficult
Under development of economy
Immobility of labor
When the pandemic hit unemployment was already an issue but the regressive job
market in 2020 exacerbated its severity as new graduates had it really tough.

• Steps Taken to Reduce Unemployment

Government has taken various steps for generating employment in country:

1)Government has released Aatmanirbhar Bharat Rojgar Yojana [ABRY]

It came in effect from 1 october 2020 to motivate employers for creation of new
employment together with security benefits and restoration of loss of employment
during covid 19 pandemic.

This scheme being implemented through the Employees Provident Fund [EPFO]
and seeks to reduce the financial burden of employers and encourages them to
hire new workers.

2)Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana [PMMY]

This scheme is implemented by the government for proving free loans upto 10
lacs to small business enterprises and to individuals to enable them toset up or to
expand their business

3)Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan [GKRA]

This scheme was released by the government for 125 days on 20th June 2020 to
increase employment and livelihood opportunities for returnee migrant laborers as
well as for affected persons including youth in rural areas, 116 districts were
selected from 6 provinces of Bihar, Jharkhand , Madhya Pradesh, Odisha,
Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.

Conclusion

Unemployment is a serious issue for any economy. “The government must do
much more on job creation because lack of unemployment not only hurts the
economy, it can also lead to social discord and other issue”, Reetika Khera an
associate Professor of economics at the Indian institute of technology in Delhi.⁴
It is not just the obligation of the government to take initiation in decreasing the
joblessness issue, even people must do whatever it may take to beat this issue.
An individual has to expand their abilities and take part in proper counselling and
training sessions to further develop their exhibition levels to improve their
abilities.

References;

¹ How young India is tackling the unemployment crisis- The New Indian Express

²India’s Employment Crisis: More Than 45 Crore Indians Not Even Looking For Job, Says Report (news18.com)

³ Unemployment crisis in India is an invisible epidemic – Frontline (thehindu.com)

⁴The great Indian jobs crisis | Deccan Herald

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(Written by Ms. Diya Saini for IPI)

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