The India Employment Report 2024 suggests five important missions that India should take on in earnest. One is to make production and growth more employment-intensive. It also recommends improving the quality of jobs. Additionally, the country needs to overcome labour market inequalities, and take steps to make systems for skills training and active labour market policies more effective. The fifth suggestion is to bridge the deficits in knowledge on labour market patterns and youth employment.
So how can India improve the quality of jobs? The Report by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the Institute of Human Development puts forward three suggestions:
1. Invest in and regulate sectors likely to be important sources of jobs for the youth of the country, such as the care sector and digital economy. Of course, the quality of jobs will remain a challenge and will have to be addressed.
2. Create an inclusive urbanisation and migration policy. As per the report, the country, in all likelihood, will face a higher rate of urbanisation and migration in the future. Most of these migrants will naturally be youngsters. After all, youngsters are increasingly looking for decent jobs and means of earning a livelihood. This will urge them to move to urban areas where they will have more opportunities to realise their dreams. That means, an inclusive urban policy will be required to address the needs of migrants, women and impoverished young people in India. The number of Indian youth migrating abroad is also on the rise. A whopping 3.5 million people migrated in search of job opportunities in the 2010 and 2021 period. Therefore, a migration policy to support them is a must.
3. Secure a strong supportive role of labour policy and labour regulation by ensuring a minimum quality of employment and basic rights of workers across all sectors.
The report suggests that India should look at overcoming labour-market inequalities. It is not just enough to create good-quality employment. Jobs need to be supplemented by measures that reduce the stark inequalities in the labour market.
Some recommendations suggested by the report are: crafting policies that boost women’s participation in the labour market with quality work; embracing different strategies to tackle the problems of youths not in employment, education or training, including those who are unemployed and youths (mainly women) who have opted out of the labour force for a variety of reasons; Imparting quality and mainstreaming skills in education for inclusion of socially and economically poorer groups and to improve employability. The quality of education needs to be augmented at all levels, with equitable access to all sections of society and in all regions; improving information and communication technology access and bridging the digital divide; creating a non-discriminatory labour market;adopting regional-level policy approaches to reduce labour-market inequalities across regions and states.