Nearly 40% of Indian graduates under 25 are unemployed, underscoring how years of fast GDP growth have failed to generate enough formal, productive jobs for young workers.
1.6% annual employment growth from 2000 to 2012 then flat jobs from 2012 to 2019 shows output gains came largely from productivity, not hiring, even as GDP kept rising.
42% of workers still depend on agriculture, which now contributes just 16% of GDP, while about four in five Indians remain in informal work and rural incomes trail urban households sharply.
6 million IT jobs and about 2 million positions at 2,000 global capability centres are too few against a labour force expanding by 12 million young people a year.
45 million students are enrolled in higher education, yet only about 2.8 million of 5 million annual graduates found jobs from 2004 to 2023, highlighting a widening skills mismatch with employers.