EMPLOYMENT SCENARIO IN INDIA

 Generally speaking if a country's national income, output and employment grow together there will be optimum growth and well-being. But given the largest size of population spread of capital intensive techniques of production, automation and Digitalisation,  generation of adequate employment opportunities in a country like India becomes a great challenge.  .Since mid  1980s and more particularly after the liberaiisation of Indian economy, in the 2000s GDP growth rate exceeded 8%.But despite 2008 global financial crisis and Covid 19 pandemic Indian economy on an average achieved remarkably more than 6% GDP growth for the past four decades.Despite relatively high growth the country has been  lagging behind continously in employment generation across the years. This trend has been prevalent in most countries. As per the recent "India Employment Report 2024  released by International Labour Organisation (ILO)and Institute of Human Development (IHD) the most striking finding is that youth account for almost 83% of the country's unemployed workforce. Both  employment and underemployment of the youth increased during the period 2000-2019, but declined during the pandemic period.  India's youth population is forecasted to decline from 27% in 2021 to 21% by 2035with approximately 7-8million youths being added to the  workforce every year. Indicators like the labour force participation rate (LFPR) Worker population Ratio (WPR) and Unemployment Rate (UR) indicated a long term deterioration  between 2000 and 2018 but witnessed further improvement. This improvement needs to be interpreted cautiously as jobs generated in the slow down period raise questions.Unemployment rate increased more than twofold between 2000 and 2019 from 5.7% to 17.5%, but then it  decreased to 12.4% in 2022.

India is  richly endowed with worlds largest youth population which stands to benefit its demographic dividend for at least one more decade.The study observed the highest unemployment rates among the graduate degree holders particularly among women. As per 2022 data women not engaged in employment, education and training constituted nearly five times higher than their male counterparts.(48.4% women  against 9. 8% male).Moreover employment in India existed mostly in the form of casual employment or self employment category, especially between 2000 and 2022.The report also attributed that nearly 90% of the work force is engaged in informal employment which has witnessed sustained increase from 2000 to 2018 but declined after 2018 largely due to Covid19. On the  contrary despite significant youth population considered as demographic dividend the report found lack of sufficient skills and expertise as the major stumbling block to absorbing employment. It has  also shockingly observed the pathetic   conditions that many young individuals unfortunately struggle even for - sending the emails with attachments and basic file operations like copy and paste and also 90% for handling mathematical formulas in spread sheets. Despite the fact that in the last two decades young people have attained  comparatively  higher levels of education compared to their predecessors yet youth face challenges in  acquiring better quality formal jobs. 

India's employment scenario in the past two decades had witnessed some paradoxes. While the basic employment situation in the country remained to be insufficient growth of the non farm Sectors and ability of these sectors to absorb workers from agriculture,India failed to create sufficient remunerative jobs in non agricultural sectors of the economy. This is not withstanding the fact that non farm employment grew at a higher rate than farm employment in different periods prior to 2018.The current employment scenario do not give much hope for a leap forward in employment generation in the immediate future. Eventhough the future of India's employment generation looks relatively grim appropriate monitoring, meticulous planning and close  policy intervention can initiate productive outcomes.The policy measures suggested by ILO report consist of 1.integrating employment creation agenda with macro and other economic policies to boost non farm and manufacturing employment. 2.Give top priority to labour intensive employment 3.Greater focus on micro small and medium enterprises with a decentralised approach 4.Increase agriculture productivity and create more non farm jobs and entrepreurship.5.There is great potential to invest in green and blue economies to  generate employment. Apart from improving the quality of  all the existing jobs our greatest advantage the'Demographic Dividend" should be effectively channelised not only domestically alone but also globally especially in the context  of India's unique position of being the largest recipient of  inward  foreign remittances amongst all countries from our nationals working abroad. Given the estimate of approximately 7-8 million young people being added to every year with youth accounting for approximately 83% of unemployed workforce,obviously the case for vigorous imparting of higher quality education rigorous skillìng ,training and expertise do exist for short term,medium term and beyond as per the requirements from time to time. As observed by the Chief Economic Advisor "diagnosis of unemployment is easier than the solution".  But whether Government's have enough incentives to work towards providing welfare policies intended to ameliorate the negative impact of unemployment especially in context of economic reforms liberalisation and globalisation needs to be evaluated. In short in the absence of appropriate and effective policies to combat unemployment,  employment scenario in the country would continue to remain grim.