Thread by @Rahul_Ramc

The Centre for Sustainable Employment @working_india released a detailed report titled 'State of Working India' last week.

Some highlights and what it means for India's future below:

You can download the full report here: cse.azimpremjiuniversity.edu.in/state-of-worki…

1/ The foreward by Wipro CSO Anurag Behar has this bleak paragraph:

A major theme in the report is frustration at the lack of growth in jobs given the positive sentiment around India's growth story.

I'd really like someone who's knowledgeable to comment on this.

2/ My beef with reports on India-the quality of data and the definitions used.

This report also suffers owing to inadequate quality data from the govt.

I'm incredulous at the idea of 1B+ pop nation having no quality data to rely on. @Social_Cops can change this.

The authors:

3/ Enough of disclaimers, let's cut to the chase.

As per the report, a 10% increase in GDP results in less than 1% increase in employment.

'Jobless growth' is the term being thrown around in the media.

4/ Unemployment has risen in almost all states in india, disproportionately so in the north.

Surprisingly, unemployment has increased among the youth and the higher educated disproportionately.

5/ All is not well with job creation in India.

The report cites political movements around increased quotas for govt jobs and the oversubscribed job openings at the entry level as examples. I concur.

6/ Fun fact (most people won't be aware of this which is why I chose to keep this in):

If your monthly household income is 1 lakh+ ($1300/mo) you are a part of the top 0.2%.

67% of households earn less than 10k ($130/mo).

Please calibrate mental models of India accordingly.

7/ Dynamics of the organised and unorganised sector.

80% of India's workforce is still informal.

8/ Unemployment rate among the educated is three times the national average.

Lack of jobs that match skills is cited as the biggest reason.

This was quite surprising to me.

9/ Female labour force participation rate is much lower as compared to other developing countries.

10/ The reasons for this low employment rate are negative income effect (more income leads to less likelihood of joining the labor force), increase in women's education, increased husband's education and lack of access to jobs outside traditional circles (agri, unorganised).

11/ Increased education levels for women from primary to secondary has a negative effect on employment. Reasons cited are increased productivity in household work, lack of skills for white collar jobs combined with aversion to blue collar jobs and marriage+having children.

12/ Solvong for low LFPR for women has to be a priority.

Push for programs that enable graduate education are a part of the solution since graduate women have high likelihood of joining the labor force.

Attacking social stigma around women in the workforce also needs work.

13/ Higher education isn't a solution, quality higher education is.

The proliferation of rent seeking academic institutions in the country has given us a surplus of unemployable graduates.

Credentialism in India is still a hot commodity.

Only 7% of engg grads are employable.

14/ Half the labor force is still employed in agriculture but its contribution to GDP has declined significantly.

15/ This conclusion sums it up nicely.