MUMBAI: On a hot summer afternoon, 23-year-old Nizamudin Abdul Rahim Khan is playing cricket on a muddy, unpaved road in the Rafiq Nagar slum in India's financial capital, Mumbai.
Economists say more and more job-seekers, especially the young, are looking for low-paid casual work or falling back on unreliable self-employment, even though the broader Indian economy is seen growing at a world-beating 6.5 per cent in the financial year ending in March 2024. The risk for India is a vicious cycle for the economy. Falling employment and earnings undermine India’s chances to fuel the economic growth needed to create jobs for its young and growing population."The fact that we have so many people who have been educated, have spent a lot of their own or family's money but are not being able to find the jobs they need, that's horrifying," she said.
For people in urban areas with full-time jobs, average monthly wages, adjusted for inflation, stood at 17,507 rupees in the April-June 2022 quarter - the latest period for which government data is available. Since the Indian government's decision to demonetise 86 per cent of the country's currency in circulation in 2016, there have seen continuous attacks on the viability of small business, with the pandemic being the latest, she said.