Given the state of employment last fiscal, the Union Budget has delivered satisfactorily on raising job seeker sentiments. Even as the country is still slowly moving towards better economic growth, the impetus for agriculture and manufacturing coupled with strengthened recruitment in government and PSBs has positive ramifications for job creation. But a lot more needs to be done and one cannot pin their hopes only on the government to revive the job scene.

Moving towards ‘Aspirational India’

The budget laid emphasis on creating ‘Aspirational India’. However, when the aspirations of the youth in India are under-met, it will lead to more talent leaving the nation for betterment.
According to our earlier report on agriculture jobs, there was a 25% drop in job searches related to agriculture, hopefully the proposition to involve more youth in agriculture will help ignite passion in them for the sector.

The growing importance of technology has been woven into the Budget in 2020 in every aspect. It is encouraging to note that hiring is stabilizing as companies shift gears to skill their workforce more aggressively to ensure future employability.

In fact, despite the ups and downs, data from Indeed reveals that technology-related job roles in India are among the most promising for job seekers, as these job openings have grown consistently in the past five years.

Last year alone saw tech job roles grow by 31%.

The proposition to provide internship opportunities for young engineers at urban local bodies is a very good move to help young talent make good use of their qualification and scale up from there.

Increasing Education, Employability, and Entrepreneurship
By 2030, India will have the largest working population; and deeper issues to address to ensure that the situation of unemployment is addressed in a more logical manner.

This can only be addressed if reforms happen at a grass-root level in the areas of Education, Employability, and Entrepreneurship.

Though the white collared workforce is more empowered by the democratized access to technology which provides continuous learning opportunities, the same is not true of their blue-collared counterparts.

The next area of promise and great thrust for employment creation is entrepreneurship. With so many start-ups and MSMEs thriving in India, the potential to create employment is unfathomable.
However, despite the set-up of several government or PPP-led and funded start-up incubator programmes, a majority of entrepreneurs struggle to stay afloat and fall by the wayside due to lack of mentoring in helping their firms scale.

Creating a culture of continuous learning

Even as the government can’t shy away from giving the education system an overhaul, the onus of learnability and skilling that can ensure sustained employment is now shifting to the industry.

Companies need to invest strongly in L&D initiatives that can help their employees stay industry relevant in the race to profitability.
In fact, this could be a positive move towards employee loyalty and retention that can in-turn help organisation’s find sustainable growth.