India’s Boom Is a Dangerous Myth https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/india-economy-boom-is-a-myth-actually-failing-most-people-by-ashoka-mody-2023-03 India’s Boom Is a Dangerous Myth Mar 29, 2023 Ashoka Mody
Over the next decade, India will need 200 million more jobs, on net, to employ those who are of working age and seeking work. But this challenge is virtually insurmountable, considering that the economy failed to add any net new jobs over the past decade, when 7-9 million additional jobseekers were entering the market each year. This demographic pressure often boils over, fueling protests and episodic violence. In 2019, 12.5 million people applied for 35,000 job openings in the Indian railways: a job promised for every 357 people who sought one. In January 2022, the railway authorities announced that they were not ready to make the job offers. The applicants went on a rampage, burning train cars and vandalizing railway stations. With urban jobs scarce, tens of millions of workers returned during the pandemic to eking out meager livelihoods in agriculture, and there many have remained. India’s already distressed agriculture sector now employs 45% of the country’s workforce. Farming families suffer from stubbornly high underemployment, with many members sharing limited work on plots rendered steadily smaller through generational subdivision. The epidemic of farmer suicides persists. To those anxiously seeking support from rural employment-guarantee programs, the government unconscionably delays wage payments, triggering recurrent protests.