Q: Why is no one talking about Jobs?
Q: Why is no one talking about Jobs?Â
A: Because there aren’t any.
Sample these statistics:
- Each 1% in GDP growth creates 1.5m direct jobs  & 3 times as many indirect jobs. A 1% drop therefore leads to about 6m (direct & indirect) jobs disappearing. A 4% GDP drop (of the kind we are witnessing) will shrink job opportunities for approximately 24million people, affecting almost 120m Indians
- “The phenomenal growth India..achieved during the last five years was jobless growthâ€. Actually, not just the last five years, but almost the entire last decade has been widely recognised as a decade of jobless growth
- Worse may be yet to come. A recent FICCI survey said that the current economic slowdown may force the economy into “jobless de-growthâ€
- The “jobs scene” in India is among weakest globally & the worst in 8 years
Why does this matter?  It matters because “We have about 550 million youths under 25 years of age..” for whom we “need to create 15 million jobs annuallyâ€. So says Sam Pitroda.
But it gets worse. The “dis-aggregated data of employment in terms of educational attainment†shows that “unemployment is highest among educated urban youthâ€. Read that again: “Educated Urban Youthâ€. This is the “Young India”. The India that checks facebook before it reads the newspaper. This is the India that carries a smartphone in its pocket. These are aspirational young Indians with dreams in their eyes but very little by way of skills.
I meet such youngsters almost every month during one of my frequent outreach events across colleges and cities in India. You can find them in Thiruvananthapuram, in Bhubaneswar, in Mumbai, Indore, Bengaluru, Chandigarh.. in fact, in every metro town, Tier II and Tier city in India.  Dr SK Sasikumar, National Labour Institute says that“..of the youth between the age group of 15-29 years, 26.9% neither working, nor studying and not even looking for a jobâ€. There is a neat acronym that describes this group. It is called NEET – “Not in Education, Employment or Trainingâ€.
Where do you think this is heading? Social strains? Societal instability? or worse, massive unrest?
And yet, no one is talking about this.  In a country with the world’s largest young population, fundamental issues that concern these youngsters get little attention from our leaders – or media. When I think about this, I wonder whether India’s young population a time-bomb waiting to explode?
Just how bad is it? On a relatively calm day last week, I noticed something interesting on twitter. Among the trending topics on that particular day was “Job Descriptionâ€. Now I know Twitter Trends are fickle and can change in the most unpredictable ways but still I thought it was interesting.
According to a NASSCOM report, each year over 3 million graduates and post-graduates are added to the Indian workforce. Of these, only 25 percent of technical graduates and 10-15 percent of regular graduates are considered employable by the industry. A recent report from Indore mentioned how of the 20,000 Engineers that pass out from the 60+ Engineering Colleges in the city, less than 2000 get “placements”. A vast majority of such graduates remain under-employed, clocking time in low-skilled jobs, hoping for a better future. A lot of them remain vague about what they want to do in life; quite a few have no interest or passion in the subject in which they have graduated. Many struggle with “soft skills†– in particular communication and social graces. This email is symptomatic of such “youth†(it was sent in all caps)
Dear sir
I dont know how to express my thoughts about ur articles… They are always “eye openersâ€. Sir actually b’coz of our hilarious education system. I’m not able to express my thoughts in English or Hindi properly. Its a kind of hybrid language hinglish. I would lyk to know ur opinion wid dis. Its a major issue. We r just hanging between hindi and english.Sir i need ur help wid another matter. M engineering final year student. I want to work for business related firm. Engineering was really a wrong decision . I dont hav any idea about dis business kinda thing. I dont know “ki mujhe kya karna chahiye “. U hav a gr8 experince wid both of these engineering as well as business related things. Plzz suggest me !
I’ll be v.thankfull to you .
This not a laughing matter. It is truly unfortunate. But where are the jobs?
Sample some more statistics: In the UK, SMEs contribute 50% of the country’s GDP and provide ~ 60% of total jobs. In the US, the sector contributes 50% to the country’s GDP. In Japan SME contribution is even higher – 56.8% of GDP. In contrast, Indian SMEs contribute less than 20% of the total GDP of India and 40% of jobs. Clearly technology, productivity and poor investment has something to do with this.
Unfortunately in India, SMEs are no one’s favourites. Too small to “contribute†to election funds, they remain at the fringes of policy making. For most, business means managing to stay afloat in the swamp of rules and regulations, high interest rates and cash crunch.
In fact, the smaller you are, the worse it is. For example, a fruit vendor shells out Rs 50/- every day as “Mamool†in Bengaluru. Even a head-load worker is not spared. He needs to pay Rs 5/- just for the privilege of sleeping on the pavement!
Fact is it is bl**** hard to start and run a profitable business in the stifling environment of rules & regulations in India. What else is wrong?
What else? How about fixing “Educationâ€? And I don’t mean tinkering with things like “RTEâ€. I mean really “fixing†it. Re-building it from scratch, revamping the curriculum, getting accountability in the system and getting government out of it. In the end it is really about making the right choices. Choices such as:
- Keep them busy digging holes vs. impart some useful skills
- Helping entrepreneurs vs. guaranteeing employment
- Creating vs. Distributing
- Sense of Entitlement vs. Spirit of Enterprise
And focusing a bit less on those who “need help†and a bit more on those who can “offer helpâ€. Making these choices & taking  tough decisions is crucial so that India’s 500 million youngsters grow up with skills and knowledge better prepared for the world they face. Otherwise be prepared for a situation in which it may be better to get a robot than to hire Indian labour. That would not be nice. Would it? Jai Hind, Jai Bharat!
Related Posts: Why Politic Matters – even to Entrepreneurs and The Coming Jobs War and my own tiny effort..
I never believed the “India Shining” hype of the 2000s. The political system is designed and has evolved to reward those who subvert rules. Your post comes as no surprise to those of us who dissect the economic numbers. In my opinion, agricultural productivity without soil overuse has to be the top priority. Improved prosperity there can vastly increase India’s capacity to address educational deficiencies.
Overall, though, the country lacks a group of national leaders that inspires everyone to be better, to work beyond their capacity. As long as this leadership vacuum remains, policies and incentives will never be greater than the sum of their parts.
great post… this needs serious thought… needs a revolutionary shift in thinking and doing stuff… thanks for the input… nice work…
Economics is more like astrology in what it predicts and justifies. Take, for example, the statement “Our agriculture sector employs just over half the workforce but generates barely 16% of GDP.” would whatever a farmer and his family consume be counted in the GDP? If not, that is a serious flaw of current economic theory.
Unfortunately, we have had an economist as our prime minister for 9+ years. That is already hurting us and that is going to hurt us for some time to come.
India can become a talent hub of the world if all the education is provided in India. If the talent needs to travel abroad just to get basic education (as tens of thousands have done in last 10-15 years just to get a certificate from one of the foreign institutions), forget about being the talent hub.
I believe India will begin to do better only when proper politicians take charge of politics pushing the astrologer-economists to their subsidiary role.
Here is a true story for everyone to chew.
During a Q&A session after a speech by Mr. SP given to a gathering of NRI Alumni of some prestigious institutes, a gentleman sought his (Mr. SP’s) advice as to what he (the gentleman alumnus) could do to help the society if he (the gentleman alumnus) returned to India.
“Delhi needs bus drivers, you could fill one of those positions”, Mr. SP replied!
Shantanuji,
I am doing cut and paste job of what I have written about the subjest in TOI Blog.
June 17th my comments
“Shantanuji, You need to think beyond. Reasons are: Much worse is going to befall on us. The old econometric model no more will work in the future because what`s going on today is the fundamental change in the structure of many economies including ours. It is a repeat of last major economic upheaval when manufacturing displaced agriculture. A 100 years back agriculture accounted for , perhaps, 90% of the jobs in India. Today it probably accounts for less than half of all jobs. Remaining is distributed between manufacturing , services, government jobs. In 10 years from now manufacturing will even account for less than what it is today. As you know knowledge economy has arrived in India much before all other developing countries. Even manufacturing will be highly dependent on knowledge based solutions. So there is a need for judicious creation of work force/skills distribution in the services/knowledge /SME/Big manufacturing sector. This needs careful and creative thinking which our government is incapable of thinking. Government therefore needs to invite a group of our own people in India and people settled abroad who can contribute how to go about. The sheer number of young minds which will be coming out of universities is so BIG I feel it will be heart breaking to find solutions. Perhaps, this is also the reason why no one is talking about jobs?Changes are sweeping across and this will be engines for both cause and effect. Experts in the field of change which will happen in India and across the globe are perhaps the best bet!
Your comment dated 17th june
Subhash: Pl see my response to GR above..thanks
My comments dated 18th june
Still this does`nt reply me. Shantanuji, this is my take; our politicians/Social engineers have not made any efforts in at least limiting the population which is exploding on our face. Whatever schemes/skills based training you devise will be devoured by the ever growing population and the young things coming out of universities and the solutions will fall short terribly. More you devise more will be called for. There is a limit to this as knowledge economy has already found roots in India and are shrinking traditional jobs. For every knowledge economy worker, I am of the opinion there will be 1000 other young things who will be wanting jobs. Amongst these 1000, only 50% will be absorbed by services, manufacturing, may be another 10% in Agriculture. This leaves a 40% who will have nowhere to go. How do India provide jobs to these 40% should be the biggest worry for all. Unfortunately no politician including our PM would like to talk about this problem from the ramparts of red fort because it is like a giant mountain rolling at high speed but it is still gathering more speed and the politicians are running to escape the wrath & they are more worried about votes for 2014 election to survive. . Present expertise available in the government is simply speck in the Bay of Bengal.I think India has landed into this problem and it will be at its highest around 2025. India needs both short & long term solutions & experts to find solutions”
Your reply dated 18th june
Subhash: I agree with you that the scale of challenge facing us is humungous – and yes, there are no easy prescriptions..My primary worry/frustration is no one is even talking about this.. Pl do comment on the blog so we can discuss further (https://satyameva-jayate.org/2013/06/15/about-jobs/ much easier to discuss there since I can easily provide links and references; pl feel free to copy your earlier comments). Thanks..
My New Take today dated 18th june just now ,
This subject is fascinating to me personally,
One of the best and executable prescription is the encourage youngish things to become entrepreneurs. I don`t mean mainly dot.com or SME businesses. I mean retail trade of every thing. We all can see jewellery from Rajasthan in all southern states. These days their sons just get to either PU stage and then start on their own. How many corner stores in India miilions. How many pharma shops..millions…..How many mobile shops thousands It is important to help create service jobs. Here the government through Banks for financing so that many youngish things who cannot go beyond PU could look after themselves in these self employed service jobs. Shantanuji, India needs geniuses to think and give shape to such long term & short term goals. Most foolish thing government is doing is to root out self employed via kirana sores/such other outlets through wrongly held concept such as long format retail shops like walmart etc. Local youngsters group can be helped to acquire skills like vitrified tiles , marble stones, Granite stones laying, Electric wiring of the house & Trouble shooting, Sanitary plumbing work and trouble shooting etc etc These are all highly self paying jobs. GOI needs prescription from geniuses which its own bureaucracy is fighting shy to invite. I can tell you with what contact I have, a person like Mr Narayana Murthy or Mrs Kiran Mazumdar Shaw will gladly volunteer to do the needful. But the politicians/Bureaucrazy does`nt want them. How does one break this glass ceiling?
Regards
BG Subhash
From the Economic Times, Million of engineers in India struggling to get placed in an extremely challenging market, by Anumeha Chaturvedi, ET Bureau | 18 Jun, 2013:
Somewhere between a fifth to a third of the million students graduating out of India’s engineering colleges run the risk of being unemployed. Others will take jobs well below their technical qualifications in a market where there are few jobs for India’s overflowing technical talent pool. Beset by a flood of institutes (offering a varying degree of education) and a shrinking market for their skills, India’s engineers are struggling to subsist in an extremely challenging market.
According to multiple estimates, India trains around 1.5 million engineers, which is more than the US and China combined. However, two key industries hiring these engineers — information technology and manufacturing — are actually hiring fewer people than before.
For example, India’s IT industry, a sponge for 50-75% of these engineers will hire 50,000 fewer people this year, according to Nasscom. Manufacturing, too, is facing a similar stasis, say HR consultants and skills evaluation firms.
According to data from AICTE, the regulator for technical education in India, there were 1,511 engineering colleges across India, graduating over 550,000 students back in 2006-07. Fuelled by fast growth, especially in the $110 billion outsourcing market, a raft of new colleges sprung up — since then, the number of colleges and graduates have doubled.
Jobs have, however, failed to keep pace. “The entire ecosystem has been built around feeding the IT industry,” says Kamal Karanth, managing director of Kelly Services, a global HR consultancy.
“But, the business model of IT companies has changed…customers are asking for more. The crisis is very real today.” Placement numbers across institutes — including tier-I colleges such as IIT Bombay — have mirrored these struggles.
In 2012-13, in IIT Bombay, a total of 1,501 students opted to go through the placement process. At the time of writing, only 1,005 had been placed (placements are currently underway in the institute).
dear shri bhagwat
i read your article on jobs at the times of india and i had posted a response. i wonder why it didnt appear there. anyway, here goes.
i too have been pondering about jobs. while it is clear that the
education system needs to be changed, it is not clear what obstacles lie
in its way.
my analysis of the engineering education system appeared in Current
Science in June 2012 and is available at
http://www.cse.iitb.ac.in/~sohoni/RD.pdf. that basically says that much of engineering is rooted in practice and that is missing in the current teaching of the subject. a new proposal for an engineering
pedagogy is at.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G71maumVZ1A
it motivates the definition of practice and how it connects with the sadak, bijlee, paani that we demand.
and a more theoretical study and detailed study is a working paper called “knowledge and practice for india as a developing country”, and is at:
http://ssrn.com/abstract=2210323
i hope you find these useful. comments are of course welcome.
regards,
milind sohoni,
head, http://www.ctara.iitb.ac.in
Nice short crisp article.
Milind: Will have a look at your links later..
Subhash: Your last sentence: “But the politicians/Bureaucrazy does`nt want them. How does one break this glass ceiling?” is the reason why reforming the political system and challenging the political leadership must be our number 1 priority.
Here’s a not-so-funny story of Employment Exchanges in Bengaluru being “out of job” – kind of.
The employment officers are quoted as “alleging” that “these (IT) companies hardly exhibit any interest to recruit people registered with the employment exchanges” although “nowadays well-educated and skilled candidates are getting registered with us”!
The Employment Exchange is a relic of socialist planning.
Let the “market” decide on jobs, skills and availability..
Governments cannot “allocate” jobs.
That will never work.. Time to dismantle these, no?
Shantanuji, It was tried in Bengaluru to break the ceiling, once only & it was successful during the time of SM Krishna. The trouble is our much touted and glorified Democracy has delivered only Kamsas(In lighter vein) who refuse any such moves and destroy any such approaches. Our Retd hurt CM the great Yeddy destroyed what was such a move! My take is: There is a NEED OF watch dogs of committed & constitutionally permitted ombudsman in each district or talukas who report every month about the happenings in their respective areas either good or bad or both, we will not be able to move kamsa out of their seat. Members of the Ombudsman must be above 65 and should be given a monthly pension of Rs25,000/flat from the kitty of the GOI.They should be 5 in numbers and each Taluka will select/name them and place it before dt commissioner who should constitutionally put them in the watch dog. If you want to break the glass ceiling it must be attempted at all the the taluka level. I suggest you to write in a column in TOI and see what will be be the response.
dear subhash-ji.
the ombudsman suggestion is indeed the right one. however there are some points: many of the failures, such as a drinking water scheme, are technical failures and the ombudsman must have some technical/policy/project-mgt. skills or have access to technical skills which match those of the govt. only when such skills of design and policy are in the public domain that a civil society will arise and development outcomes will be better.
in my opinion, such ombudsmen are already there: the regional engineering college and universities! one must teach these colleges to become regional designers, monitoring and evaluation agencies, and so on. furthermore, by the 13th finance commission and the 74th amendment, there is official room in the district planning body for professionals and money for them to work on projects for the district. it is for educational colleges to campaign for doing such work. this will give the district better outcomes and also train our students in core engineering values. this is explained in the you-tube link above, linked again here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G71maumVZ1A
it is a 40-minute lecture by a ahem, professor (me) so you have to be patient. it presents a case study of what is possible. more case studies are at:
http://www.cse.iitb.ac.in/~sohoni/water or http://www.ctara.iitb.ac.in
all of these case studies are done by UG/PG students and are on live development situations. it is CTARA’s mandate to pursue the above line of thought of empowering the civil society.
disclosure: the author is a professor in an engineering college and stands to benefit if his suggestions are implemented.
regards, milind sohoni.
On the shrinking job market for the young (courtesy Business Standards, June 21, 2013)
…In what could lend ammunition to those criticising the government’s so-called jobless growth model, unemployment in India had risen 10.2 per cent in two years, official data showed today. Compared with 9.8 million on January 1, 2010, 10.8 million people were without any job on January 1, 2012.
Some analysts said, the rise in unemployment was the reflection of a sharp drop in the rate of GDP growth, which plunged to 6.2 per cent in 2011-12 and further to a decade low of five per cent in 2012-13.
Under Performing Alliance (UPA) creates record unemployment
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/indicators/india-whining-poll-bound-upa-government-creates-record-unemployment/articleshow/20690656.cms