Unemployment in India

Rena Kapoor · Post by **Rena Kapoor** » Sat Apr 11, 2009 4:25 pm

1. High Population growth: The galloping increase in population of our country during the last decade has further aggravated the unemployment problem in the country. Due to rapidly increasing population of the country, a dangerous situation has arisen in which the magnitude of unemployment goes on increasing during each plan period.

2. Insufficient Rate of Economic Progress: Although India is a developing country, the rate of growth is inadequate to absorb the entire labour force in the country. The opportunities of employment are not sufficient to absorb the additions in the labour force of the country, which are taking place as result of the rapidly increasing population in India.

3. Absence of employment opportunities in activities other than agriculture: As enough other employment opportunities are not available, agriculture is the principal area of employment in our country. Thus, pressure on land is high, as about 2/3 of the labour force is engaged in agriculture. Land is thus overcrowded and a large part of the work force is underemployed and suffer from disguised unemployment.

4. Seasonal Employment: Agriculture in India offers seasonal employment; thus agricultural labour remains idle during the off-season.

5. Joint Family System: Existence of joint family system in India promotes disguised unemployment. Usually the members of a family work on their family farms or do family business. There are more workers on a family farm than what would be needed on them.

6. Increasing turnout of students from Indian Universities: During the last decade, educated unemployment has increased due to rapid turnout of graduates by the Indian universities. Moreover, in the Indian educational system, more emphasis is placed on engineering and other

Technical subjects rather than on Arts subjects. But there is unemployment amongst technical graduates as well. There is a lack of proper vocational education in the country.

7. Slow Developing of Industries: Industrialization is not rapid in our country and industrial labour finds few job opportunities. The agricultural surplus labour force is not absorbed by the industrial sector. This leads to disguised unemployment in agriculture.