India stares at high youth unemployment as hiring in its behemoth IT sector slows

World

India is facing a youth unemployment problem as a decline in white-collar jobs in its information technology sector has left many fresh graduates and young people unemployed. This is reported by CNBC.

India stares at high youth unemployment as hiring in its behemoth IT sector slows
In the October to December period last year, unemployment in India’s youth aged 20 to 24 years rose to 44.49%, from 43.65% in the previous quarter. Unemployment among 25- to 29-year-olds rose to 14.33% during the same period from 13.35% in the prior quarter, according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy.

The world’s most populous country, which also has the world’s largest youth population, had 43.3 million university enrolments in fiscal year ending March 2022, according to the latest government data.

“We’ve seen consistently high growth of the economy, but I don’t think employment has kept up pace,” said Chandra Garisa, CEO of recruitment firm Foundit.

As automation and artificial intelligence adoption picks up pace, many roles in IT are becoming redundant — a phenomenon that’s not restricted to India.

“Earlier, the vast majority of college graduates used to be hired for basic skills, but now those basic skills are being taken care of by technology,” Garisa noted.

Youth unemployment in India is also driven by a “transitory mismatch of skills” as many students are equipped with skills for the IT sector, but job creation is happening in the manufacturing industry,” Garisa said.

Garisa highlighted that there is still a perception among the youth that careers in the manufacturing sector are not as good as those in IT — which means some candidates might not be able to capitalize on the emerging new jobs.

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