As many as 42% of graduates under the age of 25 remained unemployed after the Covid-19 pandemic, while the pace of job creation decreased following the global economic slowdown, reports LiveMint, citing a report, ‘State of Working India 2023: Social Identities and Labour Market Outcomes’ by Bengaluru-based Azim Premji University. The report, which cited data from the Periodic Labour Force Survey (2021-22), carried out by the National Statistical Office (NSO), added that a large variation in the rate of unemployment exists even among people with higher education, though post-Covid figures remain below the pre-Covid levels.

“The unemployment rate falls from over 40% for educated youth under 25 years of age to less than 5% for graduates who are 35 years and above," the report said. “This indicates that eventually graduates do find jobs but the key questions are, what is the nature of jobs they find and do these match their skills and aspirations.”

The report said the connection between India’s economic growth and increase in good jobs remains weak. “Since the 1990s year-on-year non-farm GDP growth and non-farm employment growth are uncorrelated with each other suggesting that policies promoting faster growth need not promote faster job creation," the report said. “However, between 2004 and 2019, on average growth translated to decent employment. This was interrupted by the pandemic which caused larger growth in distress employment.”