India's youth employment needs close analysis, not casual commentary
The International Labour Organization (ILO) in partnership with the Institute for Human Development (IHD) recently released the India Employment Report 2024, which has a special focus on youth employment. The report, a careful analysis of the job situation in India, created its usual set of headlines. Unfortunately, many of these headlines were mischievous, detracting from many important characteristics of India’s improving labour market.
In fact, chief economic advisor V. Anantha Nageswaran noted in a recent Mint column that it “attracted attention for the concerns more than confidence... expressed." These concerns reflect a combination of misreading and misunderstanding of the challenges of youth unemployment, partly facilitated by a curious choice of data points used by the ILO-IHD team to report their analysis.
The main report focuses on the Indian employment picture between 2000 and 2022, drawing National Sample Survey (NSS) data of 1999-00, 2011-12 and Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) reports of 2018-19 and 2021-22. In an annexure, the report also summarizes key findings of PLFS 2022-23. With regard to the issue of youth employment, the report on the whole notes “the rising trend in youth unemployment was partially reversed between 2019 and 2022." It points out that youth unemployment increased from 5.7% in 2000 to 17.5% in 2019, before decreasing to 12.4% in 2022 (and to 10% in 2023).
Across various chapters, the report brings out clearly the improvements that have taken place in India’s employment indicators, including youth employment numbers between 2019 and 2023. This brings us to the curious choice of dates used by the authors in presenting their arguments. Not only has the NSS office conducted employment
. Read more on livemint.com
