Emerging Youth and Unemployment

Emerging Youth and Unemployment

By: Dr.Athiqul H. Laskar

Poverty and unemployment go hand in hand. Unemployment broadly refers to a state where a person is unable to find sufficient income-generating means in spite of having the physical ability and mental willingness to do so. This article examines the extent of unemployment, and under-employment in India and its effects on the psyche of the Indian youth.
The NSSO has defined ‘work’ or ‘gainful’ activity as the activity pursued for pay, profit or family gain or in other words, the activity which adds value to the national product. While complete unemployment means no job at all, under-employment means, lack of insufficient work that is barely enough to make ends meet. The Government of India has certainly taken up a lot of measures to combat the menace of unemployment. For e.g. the Prime Minister Rozgar Yojana (PMRY) Scheme for Educated Unemployed Youth. This scheme has been designed to create employment for over a million people by the setting up of 7 lakh micro enterprises by the educated unemployed. Special focus was given by the government for the employment of the rural youth. The IRDP or the Integrated Rural Development Programme was meant to help farmers and the rural artisans below the poverty line to learn advanced skills necessary for converting their skills into income. The TRYSEM (Training of Rural youth for self-employment) was launched in 1979. Its major aim was to empower the rural youth by giving them technical training so that they could be self-employed along with the payment of a stipend during training. However in 1999, IRDP, TRYSEM and other such programmes were combined into one holistic programme known as Swarnajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana wherein 10% of the financial allocation is set up for the training of the ‘Swarozgaris’. However, what is worth studying is the actual amount that is utilized. Research has time and again demonstrated that in many such government schemes, the allocated money is either lost the maze of corruption or lies unused until the government decides to launch another scheme after the failure of the previous one.
The issue of unorganized nature of work creating insecurity among the workers is not new. The poor income groups cannot afford higher education for their children and thus their chances of employment in the organized sector are scarce. The unorganized or the ‘casual’ sector of work is highly exploitative and the workers in such industries work for low wages and many times in sub-human working conditions. Indian farmers, who form a major bulk of the rural workforce, work in the unorganized sector. The Urban workforce in the unorganized sector consists of contract based workers and those people who migrates from villages to the city in search of work and end up working as manual laborers or other such unorganized form of work. According to the CIA World Fact book, (Central Intelligence Agency-United States of America), in India in 2009 unemployment was growing at a rate of almost 10.7%. These are the official figures and may not include under-employment. Thus, actual rate of unemployment can only be higher than this figure.

Liberalization means more industries, more industries mean more jobs. How can unemployment figures rise in spite of liberalization? The answer is- liberalization demands a large scale, mass based mode of production. So heavy machinery replaces human resource and this is the major cause of post-liberalization unemployment. Machines beat man as far as mass production is concerned. Hence, while liberalization does create more jobs, an equal or in fact, an increasing number of jobs are lost every day. The downfall of the trademark Mumbai ‘Mill Culture’ illustrates this phenomenon. An example of how industrialization does not necessarily mean more jobs can be seen from the Washington based Institute of Policy Studies (IPS). According to this study, “the combined sales of the world’s top 200 MNCs is now greater than the combined GDP of all but the world’s nine largest economies. Yet the total direct employment generated by these multi-nationals is a mere 18.8 millions –one-hundredth of one percent of the global workforce.” (indiaonestop.com). Unemployment means no income for the individual and his family and hence the vicious circle of poverty-unemployment-poverty exists in our society. However poverty is not the only reason for unemployment in India. One of the most important reasons for unemployment is the colossal growth in the population. “India's labour force is growing at a rate of 2.5 per cent annually, but employment is growing at only 2.3 per cent. Thus, the country is faced with the challenge of not only absorbing new entrants to the job market (estimated at seven million people every year), but also clearing the backlog.” (indiaonestop.com). As a result of population explosion, the number of jobs created has always been less than the number of candidates qualifying for a post, thus increasing competition for one post. “In 1971, 2, 88,487 degree holders and technical personnel were unemployed or seeking jobs.” (G.D Sharma, 1976). In fact an analytical study conducted in 2004 by S Ray and Rattan Chand concluded that unemployment was the highest for the ‘graduate and above’ category. (Chand, 2004) Why is it that even after completing graduation some people could not get the desired job? On one hand there is increased competition and on the other, the present education system is highly unequipped to arm the students with industry-oriented skills. So, only those students who can convert the theory-oriented learning into practical skills stand a chance to secure a job in the organized sector. Other candidates inspire of completing graduation and other higher studies cannot secure high-profile jobs. After so much of education, settling down for a mediocre job may get on to their nerves and thus fill them with a sense of frustration. Some of these unemployed graduates might eventually be successful in getting part-time jobs or may start small businesses, but that might not be exactly what they had aspired for.

However a vast majority of these unemployed graduates who do not have the resources or the skill to start their own business may end up suffering from depression and many other similar problems in days to come. (Writer is a retired US Army Officer and former NATO Commander in Holland sector, athiqul16@yahoo.co.in)