Modi's youth problem in one word: Jobs

Picture Credit: by BBC

India has never had a more educated generation. It has also rarely had a more frustrated one.

Despite years of economic growth that have made India the world's fifth-largest economy, graduates now account for nearly two-thirds of India's unemployed population, a statistic that sits at the heart of one of the most politically dangerous crises facing Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government.

The numbers come from India's own Periodic Labour Force Survey and parliamentary records, and they tell a story the government has struggled to answer. Millions of degree holders are not finding stable employment, they are cycling through insecure, informal work that bears no relationship to the qualifications they spent years and family savings acquiring. The problem is not uniform across states: Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, West Bengal, Punjab, and Bihar all report distinct patterns of graduate unemployment, with some of India's most educated states also recording some of its worst job absorption rates.

The government's flagship response has been Skill India, a programme designed to certify and place young workers into employment. A Comptroller and Auditor General audit of the programme's PMKVY scheme found that only 41 to 43% of certified candidates were actually placed in jobs. The audit also uncovered blacklisted training centres, filed FIRs, and systemic implementation failures that undermined the programme's core promise.

Picture Credit: by The Gaurdian

The PM Internship Scheme, launched as a supplementary measure, is still producing early data, and early scepticism.

Behind the policy failures lies a structural reality: India's economy is not generating quality formal jobs fast enough to absorb the 7 to 10 million young people entering the labour market every year. When recruitment scams emerge or exam papers leak, as they did spectacularly this year, triggering the Cockroach Janta Party movement, the anger is not simply about one corrupt official. It is about a generation that followed every rule and still cannot find a future.

India's demographic dividend has a deadline. The question is whether the jobs will arrive before it expires.