 "Stampede-like situation in Mumbai over jobs: Is India facing an employment crisis?")
A stampede-like situation at Mumbai airport where thousands of applicants had turned up for jobs has put focus on the state of unemployment in India. On Tuesday (July 16), a large crowd gathered to apply for airport loader posts at Air India.
Over 25,000 applicants came up for 2,216 vacancies, with Air India staff struggling to manage the rush, as per an NDTV report. Visuals from the site showed the applicants pushing each other to make it to the form counters.
One of the aspirants who travelled to Mumbai from Buldhana district told NDTV, “I have come to apply for the post of handyman. They are offering a salary of Rs 22,500”. He also said he would quit his studies if he was hired.
“What do we do? There is so much unemployment. I urge the government to create more job opportunities,” the aspirant said.
This is not the first time that a massive crowd has turned up for just a few vacancies. Recently, a similar incident took place in Gujarat. These incidents raise a pertinent question: Is India facing an unemployment crisis?
Let’s take a closer look.
Mumbai, Gujarat incidents
Job seekers in Mumbai reportedly had to wait for hours without food and water, leading to some feeling unwell.
Speaking to NDTV, an aspirant with a BA degree said he is not aware much about the work of a handyman but he “needs the job”.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsA candidate, who came from Rajasthan’s Alwar to Mumbai for the job, said he has an MCom degree and is preparing for government job exams but he went to the Air India recruitment drive as “salary here is good”.
मुंबई के बारे में कहा जाता है कि यहां से कोई खाली हाथ नहीं जाता, यहां सबको अपना गुज़ारा करने के लिए कुछ न कुछ मिल जाता है। लेकिन आर्थिक राजधानी मुंबई में बेरोज़गारी का ये हाल देखिए।
— Prof. Varsha Eknath Gaikwad (@VarshaEGaikwad) July 16, 2024
ये मुंबई एयरपोर्ट के बाहर के दृश्य हैं। एयरपोर्ट पर लोडर के ६०० पदों के लिए २५००० से ज्यादा… pic.twitter.com/GoZwdlyi1g
The Mumbai video has come just days after clips of hundreds of jobseekers jostling with each other emerged in Gujarat’s Bharuch district.
A video showed applicants in Bharuch’s Ankelshwar trying to enter a hotel where a job interview was organised by the chemical firm Thermax Company for ten vacant positions. About 1,800 aspirants had turned up, and due to the overcrowding, a side railing at the hotel collapsed. No one had suffered serious injuries.
The Congress had hit out at the Bharatiya Janata Party, saying this was “Modi’s Gujarat model”. Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi wrote in a post on X at the time the “disease of unemployment has become a pandemic and the BJP ruled states have become its epicentres”.
This is the “reality of Modi’s Amrit Kaal”, he said.
Gujarat’s Minister for State for home and industry, Harsh Sanghavi, had countered the Congress’ charges, saying it was trying to defame Gujarat by its “misleading” post.
Is there joblessness in India?
India has witnessed several protests in recent years over the employment issue. The Opposition has taken a potshot at the Centre over the lack of jobs in India — bringing up the issue in Parliament, social media and streets.
A security breach in Parliament last year had also brought the issue of unemployment to the limelight. Two men with smoke canisters jumped into the Lok Sabha chamber from the visitors’ gallery, while two others raised slogan outside Parliament. A probe had revealed they were protesting against unemployment, farmer issues and violence in Manipur.
In 2020, student agitations against unemployment broke out in Uttar Pradesh on the streets and on social media, prompting the government to ask officials to fill the vacancies.
Two years later, violent protests erupted in Bihar and UP, with demonstrators burning train cars and tyres, and blocking rail traffic to protest against alleged irregularities in the Railway Recruitment Exam (RRB) exam.
A month-on-month data provided by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) found that India’s unemployment rate increased to 9.2 per cent in June this year, a 7 per cent rise from May.
The issue of joblessness is mostly hurting young Indians. According to a recent report by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the Institute of Human Development (IHD), youth form nearly 83 per cent of the unemployed workforce in India.
The rate of educated youth among the total unemployed young people has almost doubled from 35.2 per cent in 2000 to 65.7 per cent in 2022.
The India Employment Report 2024 also revealed that wages have mostly remained stagnant or decreased, with real wages (the amount one receives after accounting for inflation) for regular workers and self-employed people seeing a negative trend after 2019, Mint reported.
The report also highlighted a lack of required skills among the youth workforce, with a significant number of young individuals bereft of basic digital literacy skills, which hampers their employability.
There are also concerns about the gender gap in the labour market amid low rates of female labour force participation.
Young women, especially those with higher education, face considerable obstacles in getting jobs.
The report also found that Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes also encounter barriers to securing better employment opportunities.
ALSO READ: Karnataka Cabinet clears draft bill reserving 50-75% private sector jobs for locals
What does the government say?
The Centre has countered the narrative around unemployment.
Taking a veiled jab at the Opposition, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said those “spreading fake narratives” oppose the country’s development, investment and employment.
Citing the recent Reserve Bank of India (RBI) report, he said about eight crore jobs have been created in India in the past three to four years.
According to a recent RBI report, India added 2.5 times more jobs in the financial year 2024, compared to the previous year.
As many as 643.3 million (64.3 crore) people were employed by the end of FY24 compared to 597 million (59.7 crore) individuals in the last year.
As per the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) quarterly bulletin, the urban unemployment rate dropped from 6.8 per cent in January-March 2023 to 6.7 per cent in the same quarter this year.
Latest data from MoSPI's PLFS Quarterly Bulletin (Jan-March 2024) reveals an decreasing trend in Urban unemployment rate Dipped from 6.8% to 6.7% (Jan-Mar 2024 vs. Jan-Mar 2023). #LabourMarket #Unemployment #NSSO #DataForDevelopment pic.twitter.com/RzGAkBX48U
— Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation (@GoIStats) May 16, 2024
The latest PLFS data from 2022-23 revealed India’s unemployment rate dipped to its lowest to 3.2 per cent in 2022-23 from 6.1 per cent in 2017-18, Moneycontrol reported.
Earlier in July, the labour ministry had rejected Citi group’s report that said India will struggle to create sufficient job opportunities even with a 7 per cent growth rate.
The ministry said in a statement that the report “fails to account for the comprehensive and positive employment data available from official sources such as Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) and the Reserve Bank of India’s KLEMS data.”
“According to PLFS and RBI’s KLEMS data, India has generated more than 8 crore employment opportunities from 2017-18 to 2021-22. This translates to an average of over 2 crore employment per year, despite of the fact that the world economy was hit by COVID-19 pandemic during 2020-21 which contradicts Citigroup’s assertion of India’s inability to generate sufficient employment.”
It said the report does not present an “accurate” picture of the employment scenario in India.
With inputs from agencies
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