Analyzing Unemployment in India: Causes, Statistics, and Policies

This report provides a comprehensive overview of unemployment in India, examining its historical context, statistical data, and various contributing factors. The report delves into the political landscape, including the role of different political parties and their impact on economic policies. It analyzes the statistics related to unemployment, highlighting the dominance of the informal sector and the challenges in defining and measuring unemployment rates. The report discusses the phenomenon of "jobless economic growth" in India, exploring the stagnation of formal sector employment despite GDP growth. It further investigates the causes of unemployment, including restrictive labor laws, agricultural challenges, industrial development, migration patterns, and population growth. The report concludes by detailing government policies, such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), and steps taken to address disguised unemployment, providing a holistic view of the unemployment situation in India.

1
INTRODUCTION
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: Bh ārat Gaṇarājya), is a country in South
Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and
the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south,
the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast, it shares
land borders with Pakistan to the west; China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north; and
Bangladesh and Myanmar to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of
Sri Lanka and the Maldives; its Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border
with Thailand, Myanmar and Indonesia.
Indian cultural history spans more than 4,500 years. During the Vedic period (c. 1700
BCE – c. 500 BCE), the foundations of Hindu philosophy, mythology, theology and
literature were laid, and many beliefs and practices which still exist today, such as
dhárma, kárma, yóga, and mok ṣ a, were established. India is notable for its religious
diversity, with Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Islam, Christianity, and Jainism among
the nation's major religions. The predominant religion, Hinduism, has been shaped by
various historical schools of thought, including those of the Upanishads, the Yoga
Sutras, the Bhakti movement, and by Buddhist philosophy.
Politics
India is the world's most populous democracy. A parliamentary republic with a
multi-party system, it has eight recognised national parties, including the Indian
National Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and more than 40 regional
parties. The Congress is considered centre-left in Indian political culture, and the BJP
right-wing. For most of the period between 1950 —when India first became a republic
— and the late 1980s, the Congress held a majority in the parliament. Since then,
however, it has increasingly shared the political stage with the BJP, as well as with
powerful regional parties which have often forced the creation of multi-party coalition
governments at the centre.
In the Republic of India's first three general elections, in 1951, 1957, and 1962, the
Jawaharlal Nehru-led Congress won easy victories. On Nehru's death in 1964, Lal
Bahadur Shastri briefly became prime minister; he was succeeded, after his own
unexpected death in 1966, by Nehru's daughter Indira Gandhi, who went on to lead the
Congress to election victories in 1967 and 1971. Following public discontent with the
state of emergency she declared in 1975, the Congress was voted out of power in 1977;
the then-new Janata Party, which had opposed the emergency, was voted in. Its
government lasted just over two years. Voted back into power in 1980, the Congress
saw a change in leadership in 1984, when Indira Gandhi was assassinated; she was
succeeded by her son Rajiv Gandhi, who won an easy victory in the general elections
later that year.

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The Congress was voted out again in 1989 when a National Front coalition, led by the
newly formed Janata Dal in alliance with the Left Front, won the elections; that
government too proved relatively short-lived, lasting just under two years. Elections
were held again in 1991; no party won an absolute majority. The Congress, as the
largest single party, was able to form a minority government led by P. V. Narasimha
Rao.
A two-year period of political turmoil followed the general election of 1996. Several
short-lived alliances shared power at the centre. The BJP formed a government briefly
in 1996; it was followed by two comparatively long-lasting United Front coalitions,
which depended on external support. In 1998, the BJP was able to form a successful
coalition, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). Led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the
NDA became the first non-Congress, coalition government to complete a five-year
term. Again in the 2004 Indian general elections, no party won an absolute majority,
but the Congress emerged as the largest single party, forming another successful
coalition: the United Progressive Alliance (UPA). It had the support of left-leaning
parties and MPs who opposed the BJP. The UPA returned to power in the 2009 general
election with increased numbers, and it no longer required external support from
India's communist parties. That year, Manmohan Singh became the first prime minister
since Jawaharlal Nehru in 1957 and 1962 to be re-elected to a consecutive five-year
term. In the 2014 general election, the BJP became the first political party since 1984 to
win a majority and govern without the support of other parties. The incumbent prime
minister is Narendra Modi, a former chief minister of Gujarat. On 20 July 2017, Ram
Nath Kovind was elected India's 14th president and took the oath of office on 25 July
2017.

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STATISTICS
All developing country like India, are facing one major problem i.e. Unemployment.
There are limited numbers of jobs in India and youth population is growing day by day.
Here the condition of more demand and less supply, hence unemployment generated
and the rate of generation are very fast like compound rate. There are high risk and
uncertainty in agricultural and industrial sector. The increasing unemployment problem
is definitely a serious for India. Without doing some efforts we cannot think of getting
success in any field and this will also true for increasing population. We should handle
the unemployment in such a manner that everyone gets a suitable job and help in
increasing the growth of the country.
The rural and informal sectors of the Indian labour market accounted for 93% of the
employment in 2011, and these jobs were not covered by the then existing Indian
labour laws. According to the 2010 World Bank report, "low-paying, relatively
unproductive, informal sector jobs continue to dominate the Indian labor market." "The
informal sector dominates India ’ s labour markets and will continue to do so in the
medium term", states the World Bank, and even if the definition of the "formal sector
is stretched to include all regular and salaried workers, some 335 million workers were
employed in the informal sector in 2004–5".
For decades, the Indian governments have used unusual terminology and definitions
for who it considers as "unemployed". For example, "only those people are considered
unemployed who spent more than six months of the year looking for or being available
for work" and have not worked at all in the formal or the informal sector over that
period. Alternate measures such as the current weekly or daily status unemployment
definition are somewhat better. Using the current daily status definition, the
unemployment rate in India had increased from "7.3 percent in 1999–2000 to 8.3 percent
in 2004–5", states the World Bank report. However, these "better" official data too have
been a source of "unending controversy" since the 1950s, states Raj Krishna. In 1958 –
59, the Indian government began defining a current status employed as any person if
"he was gainfully occupied [for wage or no wage] on at least one day", during the
reference week [reference period] "regardless of the hours of work" he might have put
in on that "gainfully occupied" day [or days]. A person was counted as "current status
unemployed", since 1958 according to this official method, if he was not at all
"gainfully occupied in that reference week and was available for work for at least one
day in that reference period".

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JOBLESS ECONOMIC GROWTH
According to Kannan and Raveendran, "there is unanimity amongst scholars that
india’s organised manufacturing sector registered “jobless growth ” during 1980-81
to 1990-91; while the average annual rate of growth of gross value added during this
period was about 8.66%, the corresponding average annual employment growth was
merely 0.53%." After the deregulation of the Indian economy in the early 1990s, four
years saw a boom in formal sector employment. Thereafter, the Indian economy has
seen high GDP growth without a parallel increase in formal employment in the
organized sector. This stagnation in formal sector employment, they state, has been
attributed by some scholars to labor laws and regulations adopted since the 1950s that
make inflexible labor market conditions and economic risks associated with offering
formal sector employment. Other scholars contest that this hypothesis fully explains
the unemployment and under-employment trends in India between 1981–82 and 2004–
2005.
According to Rubina Verma, while the Indian economy has been shifting from being
predominantly agriculture employment-based to one where the employment is a mix of
agriculture, manufacturing and services, the economy has largely seen a "jobless
growth" between the 1980s and 2007. This jobless growth in the Indian manufacturing
has been puzzling, states Sonia Bhalotra, and is in part linked to the productivity
growth. The major industries that have seen growth in formal employment have been
export-oriented manufacturing, software, and local services. However, states Ajit
Ghose, the services-based industry has not been "particularly employment-intensive",
and its rapid growth has not addressed the unemployment and under-employment
problems in India – and the job needs of its growing population – between 1983 and
2010.
According to Soumyatanu Mukherjee, even though the formal organized sector of the
Indian economy grew rapidly in the 2000s, it did not create jobs and the growth was
largely through capital intensive investments and labor productivity gains. The
organised sector employment, states Mukherjee, actually "reduced dramatically
between 2004~2005 and 2009–2010".

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CAUSES OF UNEMPLOYMENT IN INDIA
According to Alakh Sharma, the causes of high unemployment and under-employment
in India are the subject of intense debate among scholars. A group of scholars state that
it is a consequence of "restrictive labour laws that create inflexibility in the labour
market", while organized labour unions and another group of scholars contest this
proposed rationale. India has about 250 labour regulations at central and state levels,
and global manufacturing companies find the Indian labour laws to be excessively
complex and restrictive compared to China and other economies that encourage
manufacturing jobs, according to the economist Pravakar Sahoo. According to Sharma,
the Indian labour laws are "so numerous, complex and even ambiguous" that they
prevent a pre-employment economic environment and smooth industrial relations.
India needs "labour market reforms that address the needs of both employers and
workers", and it should rewrite its labour laws that protect its workers, provides social
security for workers between jobs, and makes compliance easier for the industry.
According to The Economist the Indian labor laws are inflexible and restrictive, and
this in combination with its poor infrastructure is a cause of its unemployment
situation.
Though there are various factors that affecting the unemployment but some important
factors which may be responsible for unemployment problem in India are as follows:
1. Backwardness and monsoon based agriculture in some regions and not reasonable
price for agricultural produces.
2. Insufficient industrial development in India.
3. Migration of labour from rural area to urban area.
4. Emphasis on capital intensive technique.
5. Government policy towards private enterprises.
6. Population growth rate is high.
7. Defective and less practical educational system.
8. Slow growth of Indian economy.
9. Decline of medium and small scale industries and not suitable markets for its
produce.
10. Lack of transparency in recruitment process.

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GOVERNMENT POLICIES
●Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005
The Government of India has taken several steps to decrease the unemployment rates
like launching the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme
which guarantees a 100-day employment to an unemployed person in a year. It has
implemented it in 200 of the districts and further will be expanded to 600 districts. In
exchange for working under this scheme the person is paid 150 per day.
Apart from Employment Exchange, the Government of India publishes a weekly
newspaper titled Employment News. It comes out every Saturday evening and gives
detailed information about vacancies for government jobs across India. Along with the
list of vacancies, it also has the notifications for various government exams and
recruitment procedures for government jobs.
●Steps taken on disguised unemployment
Agriculture is the most labour absorbing sector of the economy. In recent years, there
has been a decline in the dependence of population on agriculture partly because of
disguised unemployment. Some of the surplus labour in agriculture has moved to
either secondary or the tertiary sector. In the secondary sector, small scale
manufacturing is the most labour absorbing. In case of the tertiary sector, various new
services are now appearing like biotechnology, information technology and so on. The
government has taken steps in these sectors for the disguised unemployed people in
these methods.
●National Career Service Scheme
The Government of India has initiated National Career Service Scheme whereby a web
portal named National Career Service Portal has been launched by the Ministry of
Labour and Employment. Through this portal, job-seekers and employers can avail the
facility of a common platform for seeking and updating job information. Not only
private vacancies, contractual jobs available in the government sector are also available
on the portal.
●National Rural Employment Programme
The National Rural Employment Programme offers people from the rural areas an
equal shot at job opportunities across the nation. The growing disparity in terms of
personal finance between those in the rural and urban areas has increasingly led to
people from the rural areas to move to the urban areas, making urban management
difficult. The NREP aims to provide employment opportunities in the rural areas,
especially in times of drought and other such scarcities.

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●Deen Dayal Antyodaya Yojana
The Deen Dayal Antyodaya Yojana is a scheme that aims to help the poor by providing
them industrially recognised skills. The scheme is implemented by the Ministry of
Rural development. The purpose of the scheme is to eradicate both urban and rural
poverty from the country by providing necessary skills to individuals that help them
find well-paying job opportunities.
This is aimed to be achieved through skill training and skill upgrading which enables
the poor to get self-employed, elevate themselves above the poverty line, be eligible
for bank loans, etc.

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CONCLUSION
Basically What's Unemployment?
- Unemployment means the state of being unemployed when one is willing to work on
the going wages but cant find jobs.
As we know, in country like India, Unemployment is one of the biggest challenge.
Following are the things which can be implemented to remove unemployment -
- Unemployment is a serious and an important challenge which needs to be looked and
removed from the country. Government should implement job opportunities for the
young youth who are willing to work.
Plus, There should be more job opportunities in the rural areas too and a system of
giving opportunity of interview. Courses should be arranged for the youth to motivate
even if they aren't employed.
REFERENCES
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/India
India - Wikipedia
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment_in_India
Unemployment in India - Wikipedia
http://www.ijhssi.org/papers/vol10(4)/Ser-2/H1004024548.pdf
Dr. Shambhu Nath Singh. April 2021
https://brainly.in/question/7054738
TheAnimeGril. Nov 2018