Unemployment In India Is Rising Despite Rapid Economic Growth

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India has been bearing witness to a growing economy that has provided a much-needed boost to the industrial sector. This growth in economic and industrial development quite obviously leads to increasing needs for highly-skilled, diversified and educated human resource. However, the recent report depicts a cave-in situation. On the brighter side, there’s this growing economy, cushioned under the idea of Indian demographic dividend. Whereas, on thin ice, India struggles with low job creation and lower skill intensity in the human resource.

It is estimated that the labour market will see an upsurge between 2015 and 2022, paving a way to 104.62 million fresh entrants. This shows that India needs to create 8.1 million jobs annually, to keep employment rates constant between 2015 and 2025. Now, this is a significant target to achieve, against the 5.5 million that was created in 2017.

A Palpable Paradox

India is facing a paradoxical situation where on one hand the youth of the country is seeking for jobs; while on the other hand, industries are reluctant to employ human-resource, apparently because of lack of desired skill-sets. This reflects the dire need to incorporate diversified skills in the young population to keep pace with the changing economic scenario.

As per the report, economic forecasters predict that India’s economy will climb to the third largest in the world, behind only the US and China in the next decade. Regardless of witnessing such rapid economic growth, unemployment keeps rising.

Indian Education System: Modus Operandi

Our education system is not equipping youth with required skills in emerging domains. The new-age job-seeker must acquire specific skill sets to be considered employable. Reportedly, in 2017, the estimated youth unemployment rate in India was at 10.2 percent.

According to the Center for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), the unemployment rate in India hit its highest level in 16 months in March at 6.23% but improved to 5.6% in May though. In fact, more than 25 million people applying for less than 90,000 positions recently advertised by the state-run railways depicts the sad, and difficult condition of finding a reasonable job.

In 2015-16, the unemployment rate in India has shot up to a five-year high of 5%, according to a survey conducted by Labour Bureau.

The country’s low skill intensity and low education attainment present a major challenge in preparing the workforce for India’s future. First and foremost, India’s constant alienation from realizing the importance of skill development in national growth is alarming. According to the India Economic Survey 2017 by the Organisation of Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD), India trails behind due to the capital spent on education which is calculated as 3.8% of the total GDP, which is lower than countries such as Brazil and Malaysia. The education system and syllabus don’t meet the standards of the fast-paced, ever-changing business requisites. The necessity of soft skills, advanced technology adoption, and the flexibility to adapt for the contingency of sorts now is plain-as-day. Moreover, the job creation has been low. The OECD Survey sheds light on the complex labour laws, limited quality jobs, and restrictive employment protection legislation in the India market and they act as a hindrance to the employment of India’s labour resource.

A Constructive Development Strategy; Need of The Hour

A long-term strategy must be devised that is dead-set on and doesn’t change with any paradigm shift, be it political or economical. To make a skill-scarce pool productive, there’s an urgency to build strategies to hire, train and retain the young workforce. Education, coupled with right skills will significantly step up the 21st-century global economy.

Research firm IDC reports that the SMB and education sector will drive adoption of PCs in India. This facilitates the introduction of one section of mass to connect to technology. From learning the ability to create content to something as complex as coding requires hands-on training. According to Forbes, the parameter of success depends on how efficiently India integrates technology in education and increases its productivity on the global economic spectrum.

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