Sir,
The young people in the country are now the most suffering lot as far as the employment market is concerned. The slowdown in the last three years in the Indian economy has been followed by the corona pandemic follow by the lock down in various phases in the current fiscal year of 2020-21 and that has affected mostly the young workers.
Higher job losses among those below the age of 40 years has resulted in an ageing workforce, which is not favourable for a strong recovery of the Indian economy, according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). Nearly 15 million less people were employed in December 2020, nine months after the lockdown hit people’s livelihood compared to those that were employed before the lockdown in 2019-20.
Those who lost jobs were concentrated in urban regions, among women, among the relatively younger workers, the graduates and post graduates and the salaried employees, the CMIE said. The Government claims that the economy battered by pandemic in the current fiscal is having shaped recovery. That is taking place but with the job losses during the pandemic and lock down not being replenished. The partial recovery has taken place so far with the job losses of the younger people continuing.
The irony is that nobody in the Government is talking specifically of crash generation of jobs to meet the threat of increasing unemployment among the younger people. About 10 million new entrants are there in India in the job market but the proposed 20-21 budget proposals to be presented on February 1, will contain hardly major job generating policies. The policy makers are living in a make believe world that the growth, whatever takes place, will take care of the jobs. They have not learnt the lesson that Indian economy is having jobless growth and the employers are earning high profits but not spending on higher wages and new employment. That is the current dilemma for the Indian economy and the most affected has been the young workers and the new entrants in the employment market.
Satyaki Chakraborty
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