Unemployment In India : Rapid Growth of Population
The recent trillion dollar meltdown of US, the Eurozone crises have changed the economic landscape of the world. Many developed countries that were doing well, suddenly are grappling with pilling debt, a banking crises and a slowdown. So, unemployment which is bothering India, is infact a global issue effecting lots of countries together.
Unemployment records in India are kept by the Ministry of Labour and Employment of India. From 1983 till 2011, unemployment rate in India averaged 7.6% reaching all time high in December 2010 and a record low of 3.8% in December 2011. A large pool of youth in the age group of 18-25 years, despite being skilled, are facing unemployment since there are not enough opportunities for them. Interestingly, the gap between rural and urban employment rate is also not very wide. But since India has the largest population of youth in the world, the impact of declining financial market is worst in India.
Unemployment may be classified as rural, urban, seasonal, cyclical or technological. Seasonal unemployment is found mostly in the agricultural sector and manufacturing units like sugar or ice factories. Cyclical unemployment is caused due to the ups and downs in trade. When the entrepreneurs compensate their loss by cutting down on their number of workers, it is termed as cyclical unemployment.
As the term itself suggests, technological unemployment occurs when introduction of technology displaces manpower. Factors like lack of capital, lack of investment, low production, decline in business cycle, dislocation of industries, deflation, use of technology etc., are the basic causes of unemployment. Besides these economic causes, unemployment can be caused due to various social factors too, like geographical immobility, rapid growth of population, defective system of education, lack of experience, lack of vocational training, illness or disability. Another very important social factor is the demand for certain white collar jobs and the attitude of the society to look down upon certain jobs such as teaching or salesmanship, which also causes unemployment. The desire for social acceptance through made-up social status too causes unemployment.
Unemployment, thus causes disillusionment, frustration and dissatisfaction. This gives rise to cynicism and dissipates the energy of the youth in destructive directions. Thus, they resort to crime, violence, anti-social activities or even worse they try to take a short cut to achieve the much sought after social status. This explains the number of bank robberies, online money/financial frauds etc. Even suicidal tendencies are on a rise due to social humiliation and deprivation.
These crises have taken its toll so much that various movies on this subject have also been produced. Movies like ‘Wolf of Wall Street’, ‘Badmaash Company’ and ‘Desi Boyz’ are examples of such movies depicting how market slowdown has taken people to wrong places, even to committing crimes. Though education level in recent years has increased but skill development is still a crucial issue. Moreover, poverty, limited access to skill based education, work experience are some of the major factors that lead to unemployment and under-employment. Current Prime Minister Narendra Modi too has emphasised on skill development of youth so that they would be able to fulfil the mission of nation building.
Government should set-up their efforts to support skill and retraining activities to address the gaps between demand and supply of work skills and qualifications. The country needs to take a serious look at its present scenario and think of some serious remedial measures to face the mammoth problem of unemployment.
