Unemployment is one of the biggest challenges our country faces. There are indications that the situation could get worse, but concerted measures can help tackle the problem and turn the demographic disadvantage to advantage
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One of the biggest problems facing our country is unemployment. Unemployment means that persons seeking employment do not get jobs or get jobs which are not in keeping with their qualifications, experience and skills. It is a serious ramification. Unemployment leads to crimes, social strife and strain on our resources. Sitting idle destroys the psyche of our youth and the much-touted demographic advantage of being a young country becomes a demographic disaster. As said by Whitney Young Jr, “The hardest work in the world is being out of work.” This problem is not limited to our country but is endemic worldwide. However, it becomes more pronounced in our country, as we are a big a country of about 130 crore people with 30% of population living below the poverty line. Some important reasons for this serious problem in our country are outlined here:
The situation in the job market is bleak and if necessary correction is not done immediately, it will be worse in the near future. In the global context, the alarming situation in the future has been indicated by the MD of Daimler Benz (Mercedes Benz) when he said that their competitors are no longer other car companies, but Tesla, Google, Apple, Amazon. Software will disrupt most traditional industries in the next five to 10 years. Uber is just a software tool, they don’t own any cars, and are now the biggest taxi company in the world. Airbnb is now the biggest hotel company in the world, although they don’t own any properties. Artificial Intelligence computers have become exponentially better in understanding the world.
In the US, young lawyers already do not get jobs because of IBM Watson—you can get legal advice (so far for more or less basic stuff) within seconds, with 90% accuracy compared to 70% accuracy when given by humans. So there will be a situation when 90% less lawyers will get jobs in the future. Only specialists will survive. Watson already helps nurses diagnosing cancer four times more accurately than human nurses.
By 2030, computers will become more intelligent than humans. In 2018, the first self-driven cars will appear for the public, there will be wide disruption in the automobile market, as firstly, people will not prefer to own a car when the same is available on one phone call and second, the jobs of drivers will go down with automatic cars. In the energy sector, solar energy will reduce dependence on fossil energy and so the landscape of the energy sector will change.
All these changes, together with the popularity of robotic technology, will have a serious effect on human jobs. We have to start planning now for the future problem of unemployment. In the Indian context, we have to start with the basics as we are far behind compared to the developed countries. Some important things we should do in our country are outlined here.
First and foremost, we all have to do our best to create wealth which goes into the economy of the country. Better economic development and a higher GDP will have a direct co-relation with growth in jobs. Money has a multiplying effect. It is normally said that earning the first million is difficult but once that is achieved then the money so earned goes on the autopilot and the chain of earning activities follows and the same has positive impact on the job market.
The conduct of the government, both at the centre and in the states, should be of an active facilitator to promote and incentivise more growth in these sectors where there is more potential to create jobs such as agricultural sector, construction sector, textile sector, and generally any section of manufacturing. The government can trigger activities in job-oriented sectors by giving tax concessions or by giving softer loans for such sectors.
China, to begin with, was like India, being a populous, developing country but it started economic activity in a big way since the mid-’80s and it led to a chain reaction of more jobs created and higher GDP. The cumulative effect of the two has made China what it is today.
‘The hardest work in the world is being out of work.’ This problem is not limited to our country but is endemic worldwide. However, it becomes more pronounced in our country, as we are a big a country of about 130 crore people with 30% of population living below the poverty line
It is an accepted fact that agriculture remains our biggest employer where more that 60% of our population is engaged, though its contribution to the GDP remains a modest 14%. We are still following our old style of farming where farmers are engaged to grow only two major crops, rabi and kharif. These farmers are thus only seasonally engaged in work and for a significant span of time they do not have any work. We have to go for innovative farming where farmers are busy round the year growing many crops or even engaging in horticulture. This will help in generating more jobs in the farm sector while also increasing the share in GDP from this sector. The growth in the agricultural income of farmers will have a positive cascading effect, creating more rural demand and thus pushing industrial activities to produce more consumer items and thus more jobs in our factories.
There are two important stakeholders in the job market: persons who give jobs and persons who take jobs. Economic growth and more capital will add to the number of persons who will be ready to give jobs but the number of job takers cannot be added unless we have well-educated, experienced and skilled job seekers. Only those job seekers can get jobs who meet the requirement of the job to be given. Here comes the urgent necessity of quality education and our skill-building process. We have many management colleges, but as per a recent survey only 7% of MBA graduates are employable. We have many engineering colleges but our engineering graduates remain unemployed because of the lack of the necessary skill.
Our education system needs to undergo a major change and we should give such education that makes students employable. We need to change our course curriculum and there should be more practical training. We are blindly producing graduates in Arts, Science and Commerce but we do not have any blueprint as to what these graduates will do. We need to think about having vocational courses and higher education should be more research-oriented. There should also be a scheme of linking colleges and universities with industries so as to enable students to get more industrial training.
We have to transform the feudal mindset of our youth inherited from the pre-independence British system that white-collar government jobs are the best. There is a limit to government jobs as government departments are already overcrowded.
Our youth should understand that government jobs are for the mediocre, and that for intelligent and hardworking youth, the sky is the limit in other sectors like teaching, research or finance. Students should passionately follow their hobby and then try to convert it into their profession. This way, our youth can be self-employed in areas like music, painting, acting, sports, etc., and also make it big. There should not be any preconceived notion about any job or profession while choosing a career.
Our efforts to solve the unemployment problem will fail if we do not put a brake on our ever-growing population. To have a young workforce in large quantity is certainly a demographic dividend, provided the workforce is suitably employed. Since our population is very big, even a modest population growth number leads to a large addition to the population every year. The numbers of job seekers go on adding up every year and it may be very difficult to create jobs in that proportion. The one solution is to put a curb on the rising population. This is however, a difficult proposition in a democratic country. China did try it by having a one-child policy in the past. Since population cannot be controlled and the number of jobs cannot be created in the same proportion, we should give emphasis on helping people becoming self-employed. Our government has started doing this by starting the Mudra Bank which gives softer loans of modest amounts to start small businesses.
Our youth should understand that government jobs are for the mediocre, and that for intelligent and hardworking youth, the sky is the limit in other sectors like teaching, research or finance. Students should passionately follow their hobby and then try to convert it into their profession. This way, our youth can be self-employed in areas like music, painting, acting, sports, etc., and also make it big
Our biggest capital is our workforce and hence we should not blindly follow developed countries where they are implementing automation and robotics. Our labour is not very costly and hence we should go for labour-intensive industries. We should also go for such bilateral agreements with other countries as per which we can export our manpower for assignments to other countries. We do not require driverless cars as we have more people to work as drivers. We can send our people all over the world to work as drivers under Uber. We should try capturing the world in the medical sector by producing more laboratory technicians, nurses, etc. Our teachers are appreciated the world over, and hence we should add our strength in this sector.
The one area where we have potential, but have not done well so far, is the tourism sector. This sector has a huge potential for generating jobs. The government has to work hard to promote this sector. We have ancient monuments and pilgrimage centres to showcase to the world. Once this sector starts blossoming, we will have more hotels, more tourist guides, and more shops at tourist centres and thus more jobs for our people. We have good doctors and our medical cost is lower than many big countries and hence we must promote medical tourism. However, for promoting the tourism sector, we have to ensure that our places are clean and there is good law and order. We should not be known for the wrong reasons. ‘Incredible India’ will bring tourists as well as employment for our people. We are increasingly getting known for Yoga and this sector has a huge potential for creating jobs both in India and abroad for our people. Yoga teachers from Spiritual India can be high on demand.
The unemployment problem can be solved only when both the government and the people join together in mission mode. The people who make policies are employed people and they do not understand the pain of the unemployed and this may be one reason that this problem does not get the attention it requires. Harry S Truman has said, “It is recession when your neighbour loses his job; it is depression when you lose yours.”
by S K Jha
