The International Labour Organisation and Institute for Human Development in their joint communiqué ‘India Employment Report 2024’ have observed that 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. The share of unemployed educated youths, the report reveals, in the total unemployed population is 82.9 per cent. This indicates that the problem of unemployment in India has become increasingly concentrated among educated youths.
Why unemployment among educated youth is so rampant? The answer is very simple. The gap between the current state of learning outcomes and what is required has widened. What we produce from educational institutions does not match with market demands. The market has a requirement for educated youth who are skilled in big data analytics, encryption and cyber security, digital platforms and apps, e-commerce and digital trade, education and workforce development technologies, machine learning, cloud computing, environment management technologies, AI, climate change mitigation technology, biotechnology, but we produce graduates who are either unskilled or have skills that have diminished demand. Our vision to bridge the skill gap is blurred. Our curriculum is naive to market, therefore, requires a complete revision.
India stands at rank 39 among 133 economies globally in Global Innovation Index 2023 edition published by WIPO, although a big leap from rank 81 of 2015, but still a long way to go to reach the top 10. India spends 4.6% of its GDP on education and 0.69% on and research & innovation whereas Israel, with a geographic area of 0.7% of India, spends 6.5% and 4.3% of its GDP respectively in these two areas. USA, acclaimed having world’s 7 universities out of top 10 and 3.3 million in-force international patents, spends 5.4% of its GDP on education and 2.8% on research &innovation.
Realising the critical importance of research and innovation in the economy and changing employment landscape at world level, South Korea pumps an investment of 4.2% of its GDP in this sector. Introduction of new courses and enhancement of budgetary allocation in education and research & development sectors in India has become overdue to up-skill its work force and boost the innovation ecosystem. India has a long historical tradition of research and knowledge creation in disciplines ranging from science and mathematics to art, literature, medicine and agriculture.
This needs to be further strengthened to make India lead research and innovation in the 21st century. Intake capacity of students in traditional courses needs to be slashed down and learners must be counselled to take new courses having good employability. Technology literacy is the third-fastest growing core skill in the world. While this skill is expected to touch the structural job growth of 69 million jobs, it will end up 83 million unskilled jobs, corresponding to a net decrease of 14 million jobs, or 2% of current employment (WEF, Future of Jobs Report 2023).
The magnitude of the unemployment among educated youth in India is fairly reflected from various media reports quoted in ‘India Employment Report 2024’.In Uttar Pradesh, 5.5 million applicants including those having high qualifications appeared in recruitment examination of group D jobs (MTS) in May 2023 (India Today 7/6/2023). In 2024, in the same state, more than 93,000 candidates, including 3,700 PhDs, 5,000 graduates and 28,000 postgraduates, applied for 62 posts of ‘peon’ in Police Department (The Economic Times 31/1/2024). In a recent advertisement for 60,000 constable vacancies in UP, 48 lakh applications were received. In Bihar millions of youth applied in 2022 for about 150,000 jobs with the Indian Railways. A similar situation was seen in the state of Gujrat in 2022 where about 1.7 million applicants applied for 3,400 jobs requiring a minimum qualification of Class 10.
Jammu and Kashmir is no exception. Here the unemployment rate in the age group of 15-29 years is 18.3 percent (MoS Home in Rajya Sabha, June 2023) as against the national average of 3.2%. It is squarely reflected in the disproportionately large number of applications for the fewer government posts advertised. In 2022, around 98000 graduates and above appeared in the examination conducted by the JKSSB for 1200 sub Inspector posts in J&K Police Department which was subsequently annulled. In the same year, 1.36 lakh candidates (graduates and above) appeared in the JKSSB examination for 972 posts of Accounts Assistant (Finance). Surprisingly, in June 2024, more than 1.0 lakh candidates appeared in the examination conducted by JKSSB for 186 posts of Supervisor in Social Welfare Department.
In J&K Higher Education Department around 15000 unemployed candidates with PhD/NET/JRF or PG/NET/JRF, some with Post doc from reputed universities in India/ IITs or world’s prestigious universities abroad, applied for contractual teaching positions in colleges for the academic session 2024-25 against a meagre monthly remuneration of Rs 28000. In response to a recent advertisement in 2024 for 4002 posts of constables (Armed, IRP, Executive, SDRF& technical) in J&K Police (Home department), JKSSB has received more than 5.58 lakh applications depicting a roaring post to applicant ratio of 1:140. The participation of thousands of youth in physical test including 1600m running in recently held army recruitment drives at Kupwara and Baramulla and more importantly the shouting scenes of a mother supporting her son and that of a sister supporting her brother on the ground to qualify the race is a clear and loud message of the magnitude of employment crisis in J&K.
The underemployment is another form of unemployment where a highly educated person accepts a blue collar job due to social and economic pressures. Those who neither get a decent job proportionate to their level of education nor take up a lower job end up with frustration. Such individuals either get trapped into crime or end up their lives by taking drugs or committing suicide.
Crime rates of various countries reveal a positive correlation between unemployment and crime. An individual, lacking a source of legitimate income due to unemployment, resorts to criminal activities like homicide, kidnapping, extortion, drug peddling and property crime to make an income. When young people remain unemployed for a long time, they lose hope of getting employed leading to depression, a common mental disorder (WHO). Therefore, unemployment and crime mostly affect people who are under the age of 40 (Swathi, 2024 in IIJSR). It is worthwhile to note that the relationship between unemployment and crime has been at the centre of an old debate. Steven Box (1987) in his book, ‘Recession, Crime and Punishment’ identified some 33 studies that found a positive relationship between unemployment and crime. A survey by IMHANS Kashmir across 10 districts of Kashmir revealed that 25% of unemployed youth are involved in substance abuse.
Getting a job at the right time is not only socially important but economically feasible. After attaining the age of 37-40 the educated unemployed person, if employed, is left with slightly little time to contribute with full potential because it has been medically demonstrated that everyone loses muscle with age, typically about 3-5% each decade after the age 30. The loss can be more noticeable and starts to speed up at around the age of 60 when the individual experiences loss of muscle mass, strength and function, a condition known as ‘Sarcopenia’ (Chen et al 2014, Cruz-Jentoft et al 2019, Bhasin et al 2020, Coletta& Phillips 2023) which is associated with reduction of physical fitness. The person develops fatigue just after a couple of hours of rigorous work and needs more recovery time, thereby impeding the progress of work and becoming a liability upon the organization/system. Long-term unemployment also leads to erosion of professional skills and makes entry into job market more challenging.
Reservation policy of 1992 has further worsened the prospects of employment in general category especially in J&K where authorities in recent past enhanced the reservation quota to 70%, despite capped at 50% by Supreme Court verdict. The enhancement while helping a part of population shall have serious hurting potential for others. It is sure to promote unemployment in general category besides escalating hatred among communities in future.
NEP 2020 has been introduced with an aim to have an education system in India that is second to none. It has a vision to transform India into an equitable and vibrant knowledge society and making it a knowledge superpower through high-quality education based on curriculum having a potential to promote knowledge and skill, critical and reflective thinking, and analytical and scientific reasoning. Besides the policy emphasises upon the need to evolve and improve pedagogy to make education more experiential, holistic, integrated, inquiry-driven, discovery-oriented, learner-centred, and of course, enjoyable. Learning of skills by all students to become successful, innovative, and productive human beings in today’s rapidly changing world, is not only the thrust area of the NEP but its diagnostic feature. There is a famous proverb, ‘Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime’ which unambiguously conveys the importance of skill to earn livelihood and lead a prosperous life.
Poor response of our youth towards vocational education, although B. Voc. Courses have been started almost a decade ago, is disturbing. The 12th Five-Year Plan (2012–2017) estimated that only 5% of the Indian workforce in the age group of 19–24 received formal vocational education whereas in countries such as the USA the number is 52%, in Germany 75%, and South Korea it is as high as 96%. These numbers only underline the urgency of the need to hasten the spread of vocational education in India. Why our students are least interested to pursue vocational courses? Amongst many reasons the most cogent being the one that the vocational education is perceived to be inferior to mainstream education and meant largely for students who are unable to cope with the latter. It is a serious concern that can only be dealt with by changing perception of students’ vis-à-vis vocational education.
Globally, the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), the growth engine and backbone of economy, play a crucial role in employment generation. In India, the share of MSMEs in overall GDP is around 30 per cent (GOI, 2018). There are 2.57 lakh MSMEs operating in J&K dealing with small-scale and cottage industries such as carpet weaving, silks, shawls, basketry, pottery, copper and silverware, paper-mache, dyeing, cricket bat and walnut wood, fruits (fresh and dry), and cuisines. Considering the significance of MSMEs in the growth and development, particularly in employment generation, there is a great need to introduce some promising ‘start up skill courses’ in the curriculum besides reducing the regulatory barriers and hardships faced by MSMEs.
Saffron cultivation, processing and marketing could prove an employment game changer for J&K given the favourable ecological conditions prevailing here. India, which produces only 5% of it at world level, has a tremendous scope to improve its production tally especially in Kashmir by sharing its standard agronomic practices and economic potential with farmers especially educated unemployed youth. It is very important to know that India imports more than 65 tons of saffron annually for USD 1.85 crore (World Bank data) for use in pharmaceutical industry, confectionary and restaurant cuisines besides being an important condiment at domestic level on festive occasions.
Technology adoption will remain a key driver of business transformation and nature of required workforce in coming years. Globally, the green transition could create 30 million jobs in clean energy, efficiency and low-emissions technologies by 2030(WEF, Future of Jobs Report 2023). Big data analytics, climate change and environmental management technologies, and cyber security are expected to be the biggest drivers of job growth. Like other countries who are signatory to UN Agenda 2030, India is also looking for alternative sources of energy to bring down the use of fossil fuels in future to combat global warming by limiting the temperature increase to 1.5 degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels, as envisaged in Paris Agreement 2015, therefore it has a potential to create about 3.4 million jobs in the solar and wind energy sectors in addition to a quite large number of jobs in hydrogen technology – the energy of the future.
India will also need around 41000 pilots as well as 47000 technical staff in the next 20 years to cater to the needs of domestic passengers which is expected to surge to 300 million annually by 2030 from 153 million in 2023 (Economic Times 18/1/2024). WEF, Future of Jobs Report 2023suggests that at global level some specific technologies will drive the industry transformation through their impact on net job creation(job creator minus job displacer impact) in next five years. In India the highest net job creating impact would be exercised by big data analytics to the extent of 62%, followed by encryption and cyber security (53%), digital platforms and apps (51%), e-commerce and digital trade (46%), cloud computing (43%), artificial intelligence (40%) and education and workforce development technologies (38%). All the above figures discern enough about the future employment landscape in India and the necessary steps required to be taken, especially aligning our curriculum with market demands.
Knowledge and skill are inseparable domains of growth, and concomitant to each other. They are in fact the corner stones of economy in the contemporary world. Realising the importance of skill and knowledge in achieving prosperity Wilbur Wright, the person who is credited along with Orville Wright with the invention of aeroplane has right said, “It is possible to fly without motors, but not without knowledge and skill”.
(Author is Principal (Rtd.) J&K Higher Education Department. Email: [email protected])
