More Than 40% Of India's Graduates Below 25 Unemployed: Report

Even as the unemployment rate in India has declined from 8.7% in 2017-18 to 6.6% in 2021-22 for all education levels, it has reached as high as 42% for graduates under 25 years of age, said a report titled State of Working India 2023 on September 20, Wednesday. The report was published by the Azim Premji University citing data from the latest Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) 2021-22.

The report said, "There is large variation in the rate of unemployment even within the higher educated group. The unemployment rate falls from over 40 percent for educated youth under 25 years of age to less than 5 percent for graduates who are 35 years and above."

When it comes to women's participation in the workforce, the report highlighted that post-COVID-19, 60% of women were self-employed as compared to 50% before the pandemic.

While this indicates a rise in women's workforce participation, it was accompanied by a drop in self-employment earnings, which in 2022 were only 85% of what they were in the April-June 2019 quarter indicating the impact of distress induced by the pandemic. The two main challenges highlighted in the report concerning women's employment include the decline in the rural female workforce participation rate (WPR), and the stagnant, low urban rate.

Though an upward trend was witnessed in intergenerational mobility, the trend has been weaker for workers belonging to Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) categories as compared to those belonging to general castes.
Reduction in Gender-based earnings disparities

In 2004, salaried women workers earned 70% of what men earned. By 2017, the gap narrowed, and women earned 76% of what men did. Since then, the gap has remained constant till 2021-22.

Increase in Upward mobility

In 2004, more than 80% of sons of casual wage workers were themselves in casual employment. This was the case for both SC/ST workers and other castes. For non-SC/ST castes, this declined from 83% to 53% by 2018 and the incidence of better-quality work such as regular salaried jobs increased. It declined for SC/ST castes also, but to a lesser extent (86% to 76%).