India’s boom hasn’t solved its jobs crisis

Israel plans to bring in 70,000 workers from abroad, including 10,000 from India, to boost its construction sector. A labor shortage has emerged after 80,000 Palestinian workers were barred from entering the country after the October 7 Hamas-led attacks.

Figures suggest that India is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. Between July and September of 2023, it grew at a pace of 7.6%. If it continues along this current growth trajectory, India will become the world’s third-largest economy by 2027.

The fact that thousands of Indian workers are nonetheless queuing up to secure a job in a conflict zone abroad is a consequence of a jobs crisis at home. Despite the country’s apparent economic growth, many Indians – even those with a university degree – are struggling to secure stable employment.

Casual work makes up 25% of the workforce, while only 23% of workers are paid a regular salary. The remainder are self-employed, and quite vulnerable to irregular and insecure income too.

But India has a large working-age population (people between 15 and 64 years of age), so the demand for jobs is immense. India needs to create an estimated 10 million to 12 million jobs each year for the unemployed, new workforce entrants, and surplus agricultural workers to be able to secure non-farm work.

How can India provide jobs for its increasingly educated young? It needs even faster economic growth and for this growth to be labor intensive. This will, in turn, generate demand in the economy from all sections of society (not just the middle class and above).

Structural change

Between 2004 and 2014, India’s economy grew at a rate of nearly 8% per year (despite the global financial crisis in 2008). This rapid growth was accompanied by