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India's unemployment crisis is structural, not just a skills problem

India's unemployment crisis is structural, not just a skills problem
India’s demographic distress: Training workers is valuable only if the economy generates sufficient demand for their labour · financialexpress.com

Many young people in India are upset because they cannot find good jobs, even after studying hard.

They held big protests in a place called Jantar Mantar and in other parts of the country.

Some business people say the problem is that young people do not learn the right skills in school.

But some experts say the real problem is that the economy is not creating enough jobs for everyone.

When rich people get much richer, they spend money on fancy services instead of simple products that need many workers to make.

That means fewer factory jobs for people who need them.

Also, India built many top universities but did not first make sure every child could go to school, the way China did.

Making it harder, some jobs are looked down on because of old social rules, and many jobs today are short-term and insecure.

The experts say training and skills classes alone will not fix this problem.

India needs to make the economy fairer and create enough good jobs for its people.

Key facts

Protest origin
Jantar Mantar, spreading to other parts of India
Cited book
'India out of Work' by Santosh Mehrotra and Jajati Keshari Parida
Core argument
Employment crisis is structural, rooted in economic demand and India's pattern of growth
Industry explanation
Skills mismatch, poor training standards and rigidity of labour regulations
Cited research
Bharti and Li Yang study on human capital accumulation in China and India (1900-2020)
Education comparison
China established a substantial literacy advantage over India by 1990 by expanding foundational education first
Author
M Vijayabaskar, Professor at Madras Institute of Development Studies
Proposed remedies
Address inequality, rebuild mass demand, invest in foundational education and confront social barriers to work

Sources

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