As Narendra Modi is sworn in as prime minister today for a second time, the millennial who voted him to power may pose his biggest challenge. He will have to ensure India has the capacity to create enough jobs to keep the youth and their swelling ranks busy. Signs are he will have to start by fixing the quality of education to make them employable.
According to World Bank data, each year India adds about 12 million young people to the workforce. At 1 million a month, it’s a breathless task for any government to enable job creation at that rate. In India, that’s compounded by a skill mismatch, resulting in the unemployability of many who enter the job market.
A leaked — and thereafter hotly contested — report by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) earlier this year cited unemployment at a 45-year high. The pugnacious dispute on these numbers will keep surfacing from time to time. That notwithstanding, Indians coming into the work pool now have grown up in a different India, bringing a new set of challenges. They are far more aspirational and ambitious, unlike previous generations.
Source: Economic Times
