The dismal quality of graduates is impacting the job market. But even high skilled workers are finding the going tough
A big controversy has erupted over job creation under the Modi regime —in particular, over whether the unemployment rate in 2017-18 is, in fact, the highest in four decades as CMIE data as well as the officially undisclosed but reported in the press NSSO data seem to indicate.
Further, the estimated youth unemployment rate is almost three times the overall rate of unemployment. These empirical observations are further buttressed by the anecdotal evidence that tens of thousands of young people, including engineers and MBAs, are applying for a few peons’ jobs.
The government is proposing to release its own data to present a presumably rosier picture. But, whatever be the true extent of unemployment, a number of points need to be emphasised.
First, no data collection methodology is perfect or 100 per cent reliable. Also, data on employment in the organised sector are more reliable than that in the unorganised sector (accounting for some 90 per cent of total employment in India). But that has been the case all the time. So, just because the data are turning out to be unpalatable for a government, its suppression (that is, of NSSO data) is a dangerous trend which destroys the credibility of official statistics and a data collection agency whose reputation has been built over many decades.
Second, why is there a mad rush for a peon’s job by BEs and MBAs? For over the last few decades a proliferation of private engineering and management institutes with no quality control has taken place all over India leading to a surplus of graduates whose employability is in serious doubt, as has come out in various surveys.
Please click here to read more.