Unemployment another pandemic afflicting India

Even before the world has fully recovered from the onslaught of Covid-19, the aggression launched by Russia against Ukraine has started showing adverse impact on all the nations. The world has been affected by a series of economic problems. Millions of people across the world have lost employment and job creation has touched an all time low. Sri Lanka has by and large become bankrupt and even India's economic situation is no better as the same has of late turned critical followed by a severe problem of unemployment. There are an estimated 13 lakh government job vacancies existing in the country, and the government has so far not taken any action to fill up these vacancies. Unemployment has grown to 6.1% by 2017-18 and experts have denied Covid as the reason for the growing unemployment problem though it has touched an alarming 23.5 % during lockdown in 2020 & 2021.

The employment situation has improved after cessation of lockdown when unemployment has come down to 7.32 % in 2022 due to the economy having recovered from recession of late. However, the youth of our nation are not encouraged by the extant employment situation created in the country as they are let down by lack of confidence. The hopes among youth are set to have been belied over the schemes launched by the government . The "Make in India" scheme introduced by the PM to provide 100 million new jobs by 2022 has not been realised. There are no new jobs in the manufacturing sector. It is only the highly skilled people who are finding jobs in industries where there is mechanization. India's role towards traditional cultivation has taken precedence over industry. India's agricultural field has come to the rescue as the mainstay for more than 70% of the population.

The labourers who migrated to their home villages during the lockdown period are unwilling to return to cities and hence there is a heavy competition built up in eking out livelihood in the rural areas. Thus due to an increase in the number of labourers, their wages too have relatively come down thereby indicating a lowered dignity of labour. Whereas, there were 50 million workers in the manufacturing sector by 2016-17, it has been reduced to 25 million by the FY 2020-21. Similarly, 67 million workers employed in the construction industry in cities by 2016-17 has come down to mere 25 million by 2020-21. The number of workers in the mining industry has also come down by 38%. Overall, statistics are any indication for a depreciation to 378 million jobs by 2020-21 as against 407 million that was during 2016-17. The employment situation has improved after November, 2021 when 1.39million jobs have been added especially in agricultural and allied sectors. Also, there has been a remarkable slump in the number of those employed in the media and printing sector which have suffered a heavy loss after 2020-21. Unemployment has been a sequel to the closure of medium scale industries besides due to the policy adopted by the government in banning high denomination currency notes followed by implementation of GST and lockdown. Due to heavy competition in employment, political influence / exploitation has taken place in processes relating to new jobs creation and placements. Also there has been a downward trend in women employment. Thus unemployment has become a major and a critical problem in the country especially after the onslaught of Covid-19 pandemic that has totally upset the world economic scenario much to the detriment of all.

Bh Indu Sekhar, Hyderabad