Growing unemployment amongst Indian youth!

Rashi Aditi Ghosh /Zee Research Group/Delhi If you are illiterate and don’t have a degree, you are more likely to get a job in India. Surprising but true! According to Labour Bureau’s “Third Annual Employment & Unemployment Survey 2012-13” released on Thursday (November 29, 13), unemployment rate amongst illiterate youth is lower than educated youth. A comparison with the earlier report by labour bureau shows that the unemployment level has increased during 2012-2013 over 2011-2012.

While unemployment rate among illiterate youth is lowest with 3.7 per cent for the age group 15-29 years at all India level in 2012-2013, the unemployment rate in the same category was reported at 1.2 per cent in 2011-2012 report. Similarly, the unemployment amongst the graduate youth that happened to be at 19.4 per cent in 2011-2012 increased to 32 per cent during 2012-2013. As stated in the report, the unemployment rate amongst the educated youths reportedly increased with increase in their education level. (Amongst all age groups viz. 15-24 years, 18-29 years and 15-29 years) Economic slowdown pain is quite visible. Hitesh Oberoi, Chief Executive Officer, Managing Director at Naukri.com reckons, “There are anyways less number of jobs because of the economy slowdown and on top of it many educated youth despite having higher degrees don’t have required skill set for the job. As a result of this many youths are failing to get jobs.” The Labour Bureau survey further shows that every one person out of three persons who is holding a graduation degree and above in the age group 15-29 years is found to be unemployed. Blaming over capacity in educational institutions, Kris Laxmikant, Chief Executive Officer, Headhunters India, explained , “Every year almost four lakh Engineering students pass out from their colleges, out of which only two lakh get jobs in industries and rest two lakh struggle for employment. This is because the number of institutions and students far outnumber available vacancies in the market.” Similarly, in rural areas the unemployment rate among graduates and above for the age group 15-29 years, is estimated to be 36.6 per cent whereas in urban areas the same is 26.5 per cent. Reasoning migration as a reason for low employment in rural areas, Suryamani Roul, senior vice president at ACCESS development services said, “Unemployment rate amongst rural youth is higher because most of the adequately skilled ones migrate to urban areas and successfully get a job and the rest get involved in anything available that is non permanent.” The issue of growing unemployment amongst youth is also raised in another report named Global Employment Trends for Youth 2013: A generation at risk, released by International Labour Organization (ILO) on May 8th, 2013. ILO has estimated that nearly 75 million youth were unemployed around the world and global youth unemployment rate is projected at 12.6 per cent.