PROBLEMS OF UNEMPLOYMENT AND POOR WAGES GROWTH IN INDIA AND THE SOLUTIONS
India is a country that has a great advantage of having a great youthful demographic dividend and recently United Nation said that India will become the most populous country in this week. With this comes up the need to use this youthful population for Growth, but if not utilized properly, this dividend can become a disaster.
Recently as per Centre for monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) the unemployment rate in January was 7.8% and of states Haryana has the highest unemployment rate of 26.8 % and the overall unemployment rate has decreased.
India Unemployment data is collected by National Statistical Survey Office (NSSO) every year for both urban and rural areas. As per NSSO India, unemployment rate was 7.2% for 2021-22.
But who is considered as unemployed, as per the government of India any person who is looking for work or want to work but not able to find is considered as unemployed and the Unemployment rate is defined as given below in the image
The problem of Unemployment is rising as the global economy is facing problems like
- Rising Fuel Prices
- Rising Food Prices
- Russia and Ukraine war
- Threat of new covid variant
- Rising rates by Federal bank of the USA and RBI
But with these there are also many structural problems in India which has lead to Rising Unemployment is
- Slow growth of agriculture over the years, around 3- 4 % despite having the largest workforce.
- Skill deficit youthful population. India Skill Report, 2018 which states that only 47% of the higher institute passing out are employable.
- Rapid Growth of Population
- Lack of vocational training
- Very poor growth of Industry in India
- Poor technological development.
- Absence of manpower planning
- Degeneration of village industry
- Jobless growth (NITI Aayog chairman used this term for India growth.)
- Overfocus on service sector.
These are the problems that had led to continuous High unemployment rate, but these are present with a problem that is poor female Labour participation in the economy and above all it is the lowest among South Asian countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, and it is rising continuously due to several factors like.
- Significant wage gap between male and females
- Decline in labour-intensive industries in urban areas
- Decline in agriculture jobs not accompanied by creation of jobs for women in other section.
- Social Constraints.
- More no of women are opting for household work due to rising household workers wages.
And if all these are left aside, then those who are employed are not happy with their jobs because of various reason like Low salary, Poor scope of growth, no incentives for training, and many more like it.
“Don’t confuse having a career with having a life.” – Hillary Clinton.
As rightly said by her, the situation in India seems like it.
As per a recent survey the salary of Indians are not going to rise more than 10% and that’s also for some sectors only with inflation hanging around 6% it’s a 4% hike in salary only.
These conditions are leading to less motivation for the workforce to improve their efficiency or for upskilling, and hence leading to a less productive workforce.
As per the happiness.me’s 2022 report, 59% of the Indian workforce is not happy with their work and want to pivot in some other field.
So what’s the way ahead and what is the Government is doing for solving these problems.
For boosting Female labour force participation
- Promoting Women safety at workplace.
- MAHILA SHAKTI KENDRA SCHEME – for empowering rural women through community participation.
- MUDRA SCHEME, One of the most successful scheme in which Govt gave loan of up to Rs 10 Lakh without collateral and less interest rate. It has also shown a very great progress with very low Non-performing assets.
- STAND UP INDIA SCHEME for promoting entrepreneurship and start-ups in ST, SC & WOMEN.
- MNERAGA – Reservation of 33% in all work.
- Rashtriya Mahila Kosh Micro Credit at concessional terms to poor women for various livelihoods and income generating activities.
For Managing the rising Unemployment in India
Government should focus on more manufacturing sectors with scheme like Production linked scheme like for Solar panel, mobile phones, Food processing and other field and should make sure that the benefits of these scheme reach to every sections like women, tribes and so on.
The government should also focus on the 4th Industrial revolution and make sure that our workforce is compatible with the demand of the time.
Program like Pradhan Mantri Employment Generation Program in which rural area and urban area will get subsidy of 35% and 25% for setting up projects in their respective area.
Apart from these, governments should also focus some areas which are yet to be utilized like
- Tourism Industry
- Labour Intensive sectors
- Smart farming through
- Assemble in India apart from Make in India
Apart from it, Programmes like SKILL INDIA should be implemented properly because
the target was to provide skills to 40 crore youth by 2022, but it failed to do so and programmes like these should meet its target on time otherwise it’s of no use.
These are the ways that should be followed with the government’s policy and the new policy should be made with consideration of private players so that they can also have a say in it and will bring some new things on the table that can promote the growth and employment in India.
–BY NIKHIL SINGH
