Millions of them have thrown in the towel over the past five years. Frustrated at not being able to find a suitable job, more than half of India’s 900 million working-age people don’t even bother to look. A colossal figure, taken from data from the Center for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), a think tank based in India, in Bombay. “For the moment, I do not even consider looking for a job”admits Apeksha Gurnani, a 22-year-old marketing graduate.
After obtaining her license in July 2021, she had however landed a position in an advertising agency in Gurgaon, located in the suburbs of New Delhi. But she quickly became disillusioned. “I worked from morning to night, almost seven days a week, for a monthly salary of 25,000 rupees [environ 300 euros] », explains the young woman from Lucknow, in the state of Uttar Pradesh. Insufficient remuneration to guarantee his financial independence in the Indian capital.
“I couldn’t make it, my father paid my rent every month. What is the point of investing hundreds of thousands of rupees in our studies?she wonders, almost six months after leaving her job. I expected a better future, but after a few months of working, I understood what the scenario would be. » According to CMIE figures, between 2016-2017 and 2021-2022, the activity rate in India would have fallen from 46% to 40% of the total population.
Informal economy
However, government data differsand recorded an increase in the participation rate from 36.9% in 2017-2018 to 41.6% in 2021-2022. “The government considers a person to be active if they have been employed for even one hour in the last seven days”, underlines Mahesh Vyas, the director of the CMIE. This think tank considers him, that a person is employed only if she worked, the day of the telephone survey, a good part of the day.
“This decrease in the activity rate [enregistrée par Le CMIE] is linked to the lack of opportunities, workers leave the labor market because they are disappointed”, says Mahesh Vyas. This is called the “discouraged dropouts”abounds the economist Arup Mitra. “If you can’t find a desirable job after a while, then you end up giving up”believes this professor affiliated with the Institute of Economic Growth, a research center in Delhi.
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