India’s youth are still struggling with skyrocketing unemployment rates, according to research recently released by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the Institute for Human Development (IHD) titled “India Employment Report 2024″. The IHD regularly publishes reports on labour and employment concerns; the India Employment Report 2024 is the third in the series. The paper on youth employment, education, and skills examines the issue of young jobs in India’s changing economic, labour market, educational, and skill landscapes over the last 20 years.
Principal Aspects of the Study
1. Unfavourable Work Environment:
- Poor working conditions persist in India, with problems including women engaging in more self-employment, earnings that are stagnating or falling, and a more significant percentage of young people working unpaid family chores.
- The proportion of young people in India without a job who have completed secondary or higher education has nearly doubled from 35.2% in 2000 to 65.7% in 2022. The country’s youth make up approximately 83% of the unemployment workforce.
2. Problems with Youth Employment
- Between 2000 and 2019, there was a sharp increase in youth employment and underemployment, with educated young facing much higher unemployment rates.
- Despite non-farm employment expanding faster than farm employment before 2018, non-farm industries have remained relatively high to absorb workers from agriculture. These are paradoxical improvements.
- 90% of workers are employed informally, and the percentage of regular employment, which had been rising consistently since 2000, began to fall in 2018.
- A sizable percentage of young people need more fundamental abilities necessary for digital literacy, with 75% unable to send emails with attachments, 60% unable to copy and paste data, and 90% unable to do simple spreadsheet operations like entering a mathematical formula.
3. Decline in Real Wages and Earnings
- During 2012–22, the wages of casual labourers showed a slight increase trend, whereas the real salaries of regular workers either stayed constant or decreased. After 2019, self-employed people’s real incomes also reduced.
- Pay has stayed low overall. At the national level, up to 70% of unskilled casual labourers in the construction industry and 62% of unskilled temporary labourers in agriculture did not get the daily minimum wage recommended in 2022.
4. Changing Industrial Employment’s Structure
- Gig and platform work, which are digitally mediated and algorithmically regulated by the platforms, have rapidly emerged, introducing new aspects to the labour process management landscape.
5. Future Migration Is Anticipated to Rise
- By 2030, India’s urban population is predicted to reach 607 million, with a migration rate of about 40%. Migration generally moves from eastern, central, and northeastern regions to southern, western, and northern regions.
6. Regional Disparities
- Over time, states like Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, and Chhattisgarh have suffered from low employment outcomes, which is indicative of the impact of regional policies.
7. Widening Gender Gap
- Young women have a significant unemployment problem, particularly those with advanced degrees. Affirmative action and focused policies do not eliminate social inequality; Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes still face obstacles in their pursuit of greater employment prospects.
Guidelines for Policy
Here are some suggested policy measures to boost output and encourage growth with an emphasis on jobs:
- Make sure macroeconomic policies aim to create jobs, with a focus on manufacturing and other productive non-farm jobs in particular.
- To use unskilled labour and supplement it with specific services, labour-intensive production must be prioritised.
- Implement a decentralised strategy to focus resources on assisting small and medium-sized businesses.
- Boost the output of agriculture, create jobs outside the farm, and promote entrepreneurship.
- Strategic investments, capacity-building programs, and policy frameworks work together to invest in green and blue economies and unleash significant employment potential.
Strategies to reduce labour inequalities and increase job quality
- Strategies including investing in and regulating the care industry and the digital economy, promoting an inclusive urbanisation and migration policy, and guaranteeing a strong supportive role for labour policy are suggested as ways to improve the quality of jobs.
- Key strategies are recommended to address labour market disparities, including putting policies in place to increase women’s participation in high-quality employment, incorporating top-notch skill training into education to support economically disadvantaged groups, expanding access to IT, and establishing a fair labour market by opposing discrimination against women and marginalised communities.
