International Labour Organization (ILO) and Institute for Human Development (IHD) releases India Employment Report 2024

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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.

Make production and growth more employment-intensive;
Improve job quality through investing in emerging sectors, creating inclusive migration policy and ensuring basic rights;
Overcome labour market inequalities boosting participation of women and youth;
Make systems for skills training and active labour market policies more effective;
Bridge knowledge deficits on labour market patterns with reliable statistics.