Unemployment Among Youth in India: A Deeper Look
According to various sources, including the Press Information Bureau (PIB), the unemployment rate among India's youth hovers around 10%. In simple terms, this means that out of every 100 individuals aged 15 to 29, around 10 remain unemployed. These numbers are estimated through the Periodic Labour Force Surveys (PLFS), conducted separately for urban and rural areas.However, a critical question arises: how reliable are these surveys, and what is their exact methodology? The reality is PLFS (started in 2017) is a faster way of estimating the rates but can be highly inaccurate and biased. Even former RBI Governor Duvvuri Subbarao (2008–2013) remarked:
"Unemployment is one of our big challenges and I don't believe the government data reflects the true ground situation."
That said, no country in the world has a perfectly robust system to measure unemployment. So let's assume, for a moment, that this data is accurate. Even then, the real question remains: how many of these "employed" individuals are actually contributing meaningfully to the Indian economy?
The Economic Reality Behind Employment :
To answer this, we need to look at a few key statistics:
1. Average monthly per capita income is about Rs. 16,500.
2. In 2022–23, the top 10% earned Rs. 13.53 lakh annually, while the bottom 50% earned just Rs. 71,163 annually.
3. On average, a rural person earns less than Rs. 35,000 per year.
4. 81.35 crore people (about 55.7% of the population) are beneficiaries of government food security schemes like PMGKAY, which provides free food grains for basic survival.
Although these figures are not exclusively youth-related, they paint a clear picture: a significant share of India's workforce is engaged in low-quality, low-paying jobs.
Many are technically employed, but their incomes are so low that they still rely on government schemes for basic needs like rice, wheat, and pulses. This means their spending power is negligible, and they have little to no disposable income for investment or consumption.
Why the Employment "Success" Rings Hollow:
More than half of India's population is below the poverty line in practice, if not in official terms.
Even after being employed, a large portion of workers lack economic security and dignity in work.
Income inequality is stark: while a small elite accumulates wealth rapidly, the majority struggle for survival.
India is often described as an agricultural economy, yet farmers continue to die by suicide every year. The government's response usually comes in the form of loan waivers, which provide short-term relief but hurt the broader economy and fail to solve structural problems.
After more than 75 years of independence, India still lacks a robust mechanism to deploy its massive workforce productively and raise overall social standards. The manufacturing sector, which could absorb large numbers of workers, remains underdeveloped. But the challenge is that building such capacity requires time—something the fast-changing technological world does not easily allow.
Have We Missed the Bus?
This leads us to a difficult question: has India already missed the bus, leaving its young population with no real hope?
The answer is not simple. The challenges are enormous, and solutions will not come overnight. But one thing is clear: celebrating employment numbers without addressing the quality of jobs, income inequality, and economic security is misplaced optimism.