India Employment Report 2024: Youth employment, education and skills

The India Employment Report 2024 was published by the Institute for Human Development (IHD) in collaboration with the International Labour Organization (ILO) on March 26, 2024. It is the third such report published by the IHD examining labour and employment trends in India; the earlier reports came out in 2014 and 2016. The report was compiled based on the data from the National Sample Surveys and the Periodic Labour Force Surveys between 2020 and 2022. It highlights the gains in work participation (which rose for the first time in the last two decades) and reduction in unemployment rates in the period between 2019 and 2022. The report looks at the changes in the labour market during the previous two decades, emerging economic trends and examines youth employment within those contexts. Cautioning readers to be careful about interpreting the data, the report details how the increase in work participation has been driven by the rise in self-employment. Among women, especially those in rural areas, this self-employment mostly comprised unpaid family work. The report is divided into eight chapters: Introduction (Chapter 1); Trends, emerging characteristics and current challenges in India’s labour market (Chapter 2); Growth and employment (Chapter 3); Youth employment (Chapter 4); Education and links with employment (Chapter 5); Skills and active labour market policies (Chapter 6); The future of jobs for youths and pointers for the way ahead (Chapter 7); and Postscript Highlights of the Periodic Labour Force Survey for 2023 (Chapter 8).