India’s organised sector created a little over 1,100 jobs a day in 2016-17, which amounted to 4.16 lakh new jobs for the entire year.
The sluggish growth in job opportunities may be a reason why youths are joining identity-based agitation and resorting to sectarian violence, social scientists and experts have said.
India’s organised sector created a little over 1,100 jobs a day in 2016-17, which amounted to 4.16 lakh new jobs for the entire year. The rate of job creation was 2% higher than 2015-16, according to the 2016-17 Economic Survey.
Manindra Nath Thakur, a social scientist from the Jawaharlal Nehru University, said: “Identity-based agitation is not new in Indian democracy. In the past, too, the country has witnessed similar agitations, but nowadays, identity-based agitation is just for securing jobs and that is a bad trend. Also the destruction of public property and violence make these agitations very ugly.”
“We have two positive indicators. First, by 2050, the country’s urban population will be 50 crore, the largest projected urban population growth in the world, and the second is demographic dividend. As per an estimate, almost 60 crore youth under the age of 25 will be added to India’s population by 2030. But, in case we fail to provide them jobs, the same demographic dividend might turn into a disaster. Assume a massive influx of youths entering the work force with only CVs in their hands, such youths can be easily channelised for any violence,” Thakur told The Sunday Guardian.
“The crisis created due to the lack of jobs can be understood by the fact that the country needs to create roughly 10 lakh jobs annually. But, according to the government’s own data, starting from March last year, in nine months, only 4.16 lakh new jobs have been created,” Thakur added. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) survey 2017, the country’s economy may be growing more than twice as fast as the rest of the world, but the story on the front of job creation and employment is just the opposite. Over 30% of the country’s youth aged 15-29 in India are not in employment, education or training. Aditya Tripathi, executive director of Employment Watch, a job aggregator, said: “The hiring scenario is showing a static mood at a time when crores of people are joining the workforce. Also, the job seekers are not skilled enough to get the jobs and that is adding extra burden on the government.”
“The rural job guarantee scheme MNREGA can help as a safety valve, but the MNERGA is a short-term solution and not a long-term employment generator. The Centre needs to focus on skilling people and ensuring the growth of the manufacturing sector,” Tripathi said.
Jitendra Singh, co-director of Jobleads.com, an employment aggregator company, said, “There is no device to map job creation in the informal sector. As per a rough estimate, almost 85% of the workforce is employed in the informal sector. Currently, the ratio of job creation in the country is not very conducive.”