Giving Compass' Take:

• The 2019 State of Working India report by Azim Premji University (APU) revealed that the overall unemployment rate in 2018 doubled from what it was from 2000 to 2011. Educated young people ages 20-24 and women are impacted the most by the jobs crisis.

• The report recommends a large amount of public spending to improve the unemployment rate. What more can be done to help women and young people specifically?

• Read about the expectations for India's social sector in 2019.

The 2019 State of Working India report by Azim Premji University (APU) states that five million men lost their jobs between 2016 and 2018; and that at six percent, the overall unemployment rate in 2018 has doubled from what it was in the decade between 2000 and 2011. Needless to say, the Indian economy is failing to provide adequate number of jobs for its people.

Who is affected?
Youth, especially those with higher education, comprise most of India’s unemployed, with a disproportionate percentage being represented by people in the age group of 20-24 years.

A fundamental reason for this is that this group can ‘afford’ the luxury of being unemployed. In other words, they choose to wait till they find a desirable, formal sector job, instead of taking up any available job in the public sector.

On the other hand, open unemployment is low for the less educated. But owing to uncertain and erratic work opportunities, there is a higher tendency in this group to be out of the labour force.

Women are the worst affected. Among the 10 percent graduate working urban women population, 34 percent are unemployed.

The concern now is that the Indian economy will not be able to absorb surplus labour before there is a significant social dislocation. The APU report, therefore, discusses the need to implement several long-term and short-term measures involving large amounts of public spending to improve employment rates. These measures include:

  • A National Urban Employment Guarantee Programme
  • A Universal Basic Services (UBS) Programme
  • Rethinking industrial policy
  • Employment-oriented fiscal policy

Read the full article about jobs crisis at India Development Review.