By Dr. Gyan Pathak
India’s youth have lost a decade. They trusted Narendra Modi’s promise made during election campaign in 2014 to provide “work with dignity for every hand”, but now after a decade on the eve of Lok Sabha General Election 2024, they find themselves simply misled by a decade of PM Narendra Modi’s bluff, which has just been exposed by the India Employment Report 2024 jointly published by International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the Institute for Human Development (IHD). Youth now constitute 83 per cent of the jobless in India, and growth is not employment-intensive.
The promise of “work with dignity for every hand” meant generation of 2 crore jobs every year, since around 7 million youth leave farm sector and migrate in search of employment while about 13 million join workforce every year. Every year 16 million youngsters attain adulthood, while two-third of India’s population is below the age of 35. Now with the publication of the India Employment report it is clear that millions of youths could never find job at all, many of they have become overage, and even 90 per cent of those who somehow managed to find job are informally employed, while 82 per cent of the workforce are in the informal sector. Self-employment remains the primary source of employment for 55.8 per cent in 2022, while casual and regular employment accounted for 22.7 and 21.5 per cent respectively.
India Employment Report 2024 is the third in the series of publication by IHD (New Delhi) on labour and employment issue. The Report prepared in collaboration with ILO focuses on Youth Employment, Education, and Skills. It is based on the government data of National Sample Surveys (NSS) and Periodic Labour Force Surveys (PLFS) between 2000 and 2022, with a postscript for 2023. Other sources of data included the Annual Survey of Industries, the National Account of Statistics, and the Reserve Bank of India-KLEMS database. It is precisely due to this reason Modi government could not refute the findings, rather the government’s stand on unemployment found expression in Chief Economic Advisor of the Government of India V A Nageswaran’s statement that Government can’t really address unemployment problem.
The statement is outrageous for several reasons, one of them is a statement made by PM Narendra Modi himself only a week earlier on March 20 in Startup Mahakumbh, New Delhi that India’s “youth have opted to become job creators more than job seekers.” PM Modi was obviously just downplaying the grim unemployment scenario in the country, a quagmire that has been created under his rule in the last 10 years, since his policies focus on wealth creation and profit, not on employment. Only 20 big companies have 60 per cent of wealth and earning 70 per cent of entire national income.
Modi government did not bring the “National Employment Policy” recommended by Indian Labour Conference, the top tripartite body in India on labour and employment issues, way back in the 45th session held in May 2013. At that time unemployment rate was around 4.1 per cent. ILC’s 46th session held in 2015, and thereafter, Modi government did not convene any other session. Even the four controversial labour codes were brought without consulting ILC and stakeholder Central Trade Unions.
Though PM Modi has been bluffing on providing employment, unemployment reached 45 years high to 6.1 per cent. Modi government has claimed just a few weeks ago that unemployment has declined to 3.1 per cent. However, the India Employment Report 2024 portrays a grim picture on job front especially for Indian Youth. The resentment was obvious when CEA Nageswaran said that government can’t really solve unemployment problem.
The most startling confession has been made by the Chief Economic Adviser, former Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram said adding that “Government cannot solve the problem of unemployment”. Shocking if that is the official stand of the BJP government, we must boldly tell the BJP “Vacate your seat”. It is worth recalling that Acharya Vinoba Bhave had been advocating employment for all, and R K Patil said how it was possible! Vinoba’s answer was that you are holding the rein of the horse and the rider is thrown off, it is your fault. If you can’t provide employment for all, you must resign.
However, PM Narendra Modi and BJP are seeking for their third term. Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge has said, “Our Youth is bearing the brunt of Modi Government’s pathetic apathy, as ever-increasing Unemployment had destroyed their future. ILO & IHD report conclusively says that the unemployment problem is grim in India. They are Conservative, we are sitting on a ticking bomb of joblessness!” He alleged that youth unemployment has tripled under the Modi government compared to 2012.
On employment trend and current scenario, the report says that labour force participation rate, the workforce participation rate and the unemployment rate showed long-term deterioration between 2000 and 2019. The gains on employment front halted and even reversed after 2019, and employment conditions remain poor.
Nearly two-thirds of the incremental employment after 2019 comprised self-employed workers, among whom unpaid (women) family workers predominate. The share of regular work, which steadily increased after 2000, started declining after 2018. The real wages of regular workers either remained stagnant or declined during 2012-22, though there was a modest upward trend of wages for casual labourers. Self-employed real earnings also declined after 2019. Overall wages have remained low. As much as 62 per cent of the unskilled casual agriculture workers and 70 per cent of such workers in the construction sector at the all-India level did not receive the prescribed daily minimum wages in 2022. Platform and gig work have been expanding, but it is, to a large extent, the extension of informal work, with hardly any social security provisions, as 90 per cent of the workforce which are informally employed.
During 2000-2012 employment grew by 1.6 per cent while gross value added grew at a much faster rate at 6.2 per cent. However, during 2012-19, employment grew at nearly negligible rate of 0.01 per cent while gross value added grew by 6.7 per cent. The paradox of employment is that it grew after 2019 due to COVID-19 pandemic because growth of agriculture employment after the great returning of migrant workers from cities, which actually was unemployment in disguise, as in the case of self-employment. Shift from non-agriculture employment to agriculture employment was only subsistence activities in agriculture due to the lack of opportunities outside.
Youth employment remains a challenge, since they formed 27 per cent of the population in 2021. Youth employment is, by and large, of poorer quality than employment for adults. Youth unemployment increased nearly threefold, from 5.7 per cent in 2000 to 17.5per cent in 2019 but declined to 12.1 per cent in 2022. The incidence of unemployment was much higher among young people in urban areas than in rural areas and among younger youths (aged 15–19) than older youths (aged 20–29).
The youth unemployment rate has increased with the level of education, with the highest rates among those with a graduate degree or higher and higher among women than men. In 2022, the unemployment rate among youths was six times greater than among persons with a secondary or higher level of education (at 18.4 percent) and nine times greater among graduates (at 29.1 per cent) than for persons who cannot read and write (at 3.4 per cent). Women not in employment, education or training amounted toa proportion nearly five times larger than among their male counterparts (48.4 per cent versus 9.8 percent) and accounted for around 95 per cent of the total youth population not in employment, education or training in 2022. (IPA Service)
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