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Labour’s love not lost: Prof speaks out on much-discussed research

Professor of Economics from Azim Premji University Amit Basole whose labour of love the research is, speaks exclusively to News Trail. Here are the excerpts: 

NT: Your research on the unemployment rate in India has shocked the nation. Kindly elaborate on the same.

AMIT BANSOLE: What we generally see with respect to unemployment in India is, the people who tend to have more education or higher education, say degrees or diploma holders.

This is because those who come from financially unsound backgrounds and have studied up to 10th or 12th, have to work, are also unemployed. Degree or diploma holders may be hailing from financially better backgrounds, so they tend to ‘wait’ for jobs that meets their skills and training.

That ‘waiting period’ is that ‘unemployment period’ when they are looking for work. This lot comes between the age of 25 and 30. As they age, there are some life cycle issues that take over.

For instance, they may get married, have children, and then they have to find a job, which they may do but that may not be matching with the training or degrees/ aspirations they have, but there is a necessity to start working. So we see it as the ‘decline in the unemployment rate’ even among the higher educated people.

NT: You have mentioned women withdrawing from their jobs and becoming self-employed off late as well

AB: Among women, we often see that they look for a job after their degrees but the life cycle takes time over too, like marriage or household responsibilities, and they then no longer look for a job.

It means they have withdrawn from the labour force market. This section is, therefore, not counted among the job seekers. The unemployment rate constitutes those who are looking for a job.

NT: Why do you think the mismatch happens?

AB: Potentially, the mismatch is also the cause of unemployment. A great part of the issue arises from the fact that the Indian education system prioritises paper degrees over substantive training and developing capacities.

For example, in India, there is a huge demand for white-collar jobs or desk jobs like in government, so we see a huge rush for jobs as soon as the government opens up vacancies.

Indeed, unemployed youth are simultaneously preparing for competitions including public service exams for better pay and perks.

NT: What is the remedy for minimising the unemployment rate?

AB: The creation of aspirational jobs will solve some problems. It means that companies should know the people who will match their requirements, and the people should know that the job they are looking for exists.

The mismatch causes a high unemployment rate. There is a big communication gap between the employers and the job seekers. One has to have a highly developed model to find out this mismatch and bridge this gap.

There is a lot of research that has gone into this mismatch finding, yet we don’t know how big the problem is, but this mismatch certainly contributes to the unemployment problem.