Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'End unemployment' that was published in Newsband

End unemployment

A survey indicated that there is 13.1 per cent rate of unemployment in the 15-24 years age-group globally and this is more than twice that among the adult population.

This is a particular concern in India where people below 25 years of age constitute more than 50 per cent of the population. It's not that the government is blind to what is happening. Also, unemployment in India is not a disease but a symptom of the bad policies and knowingly unconscious politics.

Our youth need to be provided with a skill oriented education. What needs to be done is to first go the China way by boosting demand for domestic product by increasing exports and decreasing imports. India doesn't need FDI until the corruption is dealt with. Moreover, there should be a focused approach to improvise our education system. Youth unemployment is a deeply serious problem which must be solved as soon as possible.

The human toll of the economic crisis is painfully, and poignantly, apparent. There is a lot to do and strong social protection measures are necessary. Such measures will not only promote the overall interests of the workforce and the economy in general in the medium term, but they will also lay the foundation to face the demographic transition over the next two decades.

We should not forget that unemployed young people experience heavy psychological problems such as depression, anxiety, psychosomatic symptoms, low subjective well-being and poor self-esteem. And all these problems are linked to multiple negative outcomes, substance abuse, high-risk sexual behaviour, physical health problems, impaired social relationships and increased risk of suicide.  

Such huge unemployment will lead to social unrest among young people. They will tend to follow illegal way to get money. Human resource development is a must for the better stability of a society. Our nation should come up with a policy that will benefit whole section of society – and not just few classes since unemployment increases social tension and chaos. We need powerful policy makers who can take serious steps to develop human resource.

The increasing rate of unemployment and the rate of population increase are strongly related. There is a lot of proper planning required but a major thought process needs to be devoted to the development and encouragement of self employment. The proportion of increasing population is much more than increasing number of jobs and today on realistic terms we cannot rely on the government to provide jobs. The increasing death of cottage industries and local talent pool is also one of the reasons for unemployment. Efforts should be made to promote such industries and talent so that unemployment could be tackled right from the grass-root level sooner or later as presence of such high number of jobless youth can only result in anarchy, unrest and violence in the country. Today's youth have the aspirations for all the luxuries of life beyond the basic necessities and when they see only they have no way to achieving those due to their unemployment or underemployment they are frustrated and angry and would seek outlets for their emotions. So there is urgent need to end unemployment.