No quick fixes for India's jobs crisis

After dismissing all adverse reports on employment for a long time, the government finally acknowledged, in Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's Union Budget speech, that it has an unemployment problem.

The issue of job creation and unemployment also received plenty of attention in the Economic Survey brought out by the chief economic adviser.

In her Budget speech, the FM announced five schemes most of which entailed offering incentives to employers if the latter decided to hire more employees. One scheme was particularly interesting. The FM wants the top 500 companies to hire and train interns. The interns would likely get ₹5,000 a month plus a one-time assistance of 6,000. The government may bear most of the intern's stipend costs, with the company chipping in with some amount and taking care of the training expenses. The final details are yet to come out.

These are not very practical ideas.

One also gets the impression that the government does not have a complete grasp of the issue. India has an unemployment problem, a bigger youth unemployment problem, a job creation problem, and, finally, a skills (or rather a lack of skills among youth) problem.

These, in turn, can be treated as two primary issues that need to be tackled. The first is ensuring that enough jobs are being created to absorb the huge number of youth joining the workforce every year, or at least the majority of them. And second, ensuring that the youth the job seekers actually employable.