It also mentions:
- India also had the lowest percentage of jobless people among the BRIC nations.
- the employment to population ratio was also lowest in India at 50.5 per cent. This ratio was in the range of 66-71 per cent in the other three countries.
-In China and India, the rural sector is characterised by excess labour: despite significant rural-urban migration, almost two-thirds of Chinese workers are employed in rural areas and 79 per cent in India.
Understandably, the editorial in Economic Times - sees it as " the glass half-empty rather than half-full"
- According to the NSSO’s 61st round, while employment grew 2.48% per annum, labour force grew even faster at 2.54% per year.
- Today, we are riding high on our demographic dividend, the advantage that a large and young workforce gives us. But this is an asset only if we are able to create employment opportunities for them.
We need to act (read create more jobs) rather than get lulled into complacency by flattering reports, even from reputed bodies like the OECD.
Elsewhere in the world, it is construed as a reality check on the negative aspects of globalisation.
- the divide between high-earners and those at the bottom end of the scale had widened, and feelings of job insecurity had grown more acute.
- Offshoring was enough to fuel insecurity, especially among the low-skilled. The OECD urged governments to resist protectionist responses and instead adapt employment policies to help people move from one job to another with greater ease and sense of security.
Is there a lesson for all of us? One quick glance on who is hiring is enough to give us enough hints? The employment generated is mostly in service sector. And one can notice it is ironically the 'war for talent' one often hears of!!
Are there enough opportunities coming up in agriculture & manufacturing? Would all jobs have a future? What if some of the jobs just moved away...to cheaper locations? Would our people be skilled enough for transplanting their competencies?
1 comment:
While much is being written and debated in numerous academic and other circles about India's pace of growth and the many pluses that favour India as a destination of the future, as an NRI who prefers to retain his Indian identity I am concerned about several aspects of this growth. (a)Is enough attention being paid to the quality of 'highly educated and english speaking' class of youngsters that we seem to be churning out from our Universities? (b) Many of these highly educated youngsters coming to the US lack many of the basic skills of etiquette and courtesy that we took for granted from Indians 5 years ago,(c) we see a breakdown in many of our social structures which for years was a hallmark of our cultural identity - I personally believe that with the shift to a more service based economy we need to focus more on the soft skills as those skills will enable us to create a distinct competitive advantage as the higher education sector in the US especially has started focusing on math and science education which has been our strength so far.
While most metrics do paint a very bright picture of the future I think we as Indians need to focus on all aspects of our society in order to make the most of the changing future ahead of us.
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