- It examines the challenge of youth employment in India and changes over the past two decades.
- Key findings:
- Employment growth remained stagnant up to 2019 and then moved upward, dominated by poor-quality employment in informal sector (nearly 82% in informal sector).
- Slow and steady transition of the workforce to non-farm employment has reversed due to the covid pandemic.
- Women largely account for increase in self-employment and unpaid family work.
- Wages has remained low and are stagnant or declining.
- Labour productivity consistently increased alongside capital deepening, indicating association of growth with technological progress and productivity gains rather than employment.
- Challenges in youth employment:
- India is at an inflexion point, as youth population, at 27% in 2021, is expected to decline to 23% by 2036.
- Education participation of youths who are out of labour force drive the low youth labour force participation rate.
- Probability of any kind of employment is lower as education rises but higher for youths having technical education.
- Youth unemployment increased nearly threefold, from 5.7% in 2000 to 17.5% in 2019.
Five Key policy areas for action:
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