Unemployment is a problem many countries are facing and that too at substantial rates. Currently, the unemployment rate in India is around 8%. There are a total of around 406 million employees or workers above the age of 15 and a total of around 31 million people are unemployed. Some of these 31 million are graduates who are qualified enough to get decent paying jobs but companies don’t have a lot of vacancies so the colleges fail to give placements to students. Sometimes the quality of education isn’t good enough for students to get good results. This problem is linked with the teachers not getting paid enough. Due to increased competition, students have to work extra hard in internships or jobs that offer less or no salary. That’s also why labour participation of the youth has decreased and that of people above the age of 40 has increased.
There are other causes also. One of the main causes is restrictions and complexity of labour laws. These laws create issues related to wages, work hours, social security, etc. Another issue is that the number of labour intensive jobs is decreasing. Due to the advancement in technology, fewer labourers are needed. One man can do the job of ten people by using a machine. The agricultural sector experiences seasonal unemployment which means workers would be employed for some duration of the year and they remain unemployed for the rest of the year. Disguised unemployment is also a problem which decreases productivity and causes financial problems for the farmers. Along with unemployment, underemployment is also a problem. It is seen in many organizations, especially government organisations, that there is less pay, poor infrastructure, less facilities. This is troublesome mainly for female employees. Already, there is low labour participation of women because of patriarchy and when they do get a job; they face problems like harassment, dirty toilets, no facilities to maintain menstrual hygiene, being paid less than men, etc. It is sad that all these problems not only exist in rural but also urban areas. In rural areas, it is due to less development and in the urban areas, due to increased competition and high quality requirement. The skills of an educated person are wasted in companies where they get less pay. These people get less than they deserve, which leads to dissatisfaction and low motivation to find jobs. That is why the amount of people seeking jobs is also decreasing.
It is rational to question what the government is doing to decrease the unemployment rate. In the past, there were a lot of schemes made by the government to create new jobs but it didn’t make that great of an impact as we’ve seen gradual increase in the unemployment rate since the start of the 21st century. The government hasn’t released the results of the surveys done; they are in denial. With the current population rate, we could reach 20-30% in the future if we don’t take action now. We need a strategy to overcome this problem or it will go extreme and possibly affect economy which is already going down.
– Anukul Thete
Sir J.P. High School 