BT BIG STORY: No jobs, no security: The crisis facing India's educated youth

Vivek, 23, graduated with a BA degree two years ago and has been burning the midnight oil to get a job in the police force. It has been a long, anxiety-riddled wait that was made more harrowing after an earlier exam was cancelled. Today, he works in a packaging factory in Aligarh to supplement the family income, shares a room with three young co-workers, and has enrolled himself in a part-time computer course while he prepares for more exams.

“The next exam is scheduled over the next six months,” he says. “I hope it takes place and I get recruited.”

Vivek is the youngest child—he has two older sisters—of Rupa, a nanny, and Arvind, a driver, in Delhi.

While his current job gives him a degree of financial independence, his parents are worried. “We have toiled hard for his education,” says Rupa. “He still dreams of getting a police job, but it’s difficult for him—living away from the family, working and studying at the same time.”

Vivek’s plight typifies that of millions of young men and women across India. These youngsters, armed with graduate, postgraduate and even technical training degrees, are hunting desperately for work—including appearing for exams to get the coveted government jobs—in a market for which their education did not prepare them.

While regular jobs in the private sector remain difficult to get, government jobs have got even tougher with cancelled exams, long recruitment process and fewer appointments. And the pressure on the young to get jobs will only intensify. India’s working-age population of (15+ years) is expected to exceed 980 million in the next 10 years, from 616 million at present, data from the Economic Survey 2025-26 showed. But employment numbers underpin the story.

According to the government’s Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) report for August 2026, youth unemployment (15 years and above) was at 15.1%, thrice the overall unemployment of 5%. In 2025, these numbers were 9.9% and 3.1%, respectively.

A recent report by CareEdge Ratings noted this can be attributed to the persistent gap between education levels and availability of suitable employment opportunities. “Furthermore, unemployment numbers may overstate gains given rising self-employment and prevalence of disguised unemployment in agriculture. The rate may understate the extent of unemployment in an economy characterised by seasonal, casual, and irregular employment,” it said.

And even for those who find work, the problem is often not solved. Indrajit, a BA graduate who currently works as a delivery partner for a food platform, is in his late 20s and actively looking for other work after he was laid off recently from a job at the Delhi airport.

Life as a factory worker has little appeal for him due to its low wages. “As a delivery partner, I earn Rs 700-800 per day. Many of my friends work as drivers and I am hoping to get a job like that too. I can earn at least Rs 30,000 per month then,” he says.

To cut costs, he has stopped visiting his family, which lives near Lucknow. “I am barely managing in Delhi. Travel adds unnecessary costs,” he says.

The International Labour Organization (ILO), in a recent report, said youth unemployment is rising across the world and was 12.4% in 2025 due to slowing global economic growth, diminished job creation, geopolitical tensions and rapid technological change. Job creation is not keeping pace with growth in the youth population in multiple regions.

In India, too, this phenomenon been evident all through 2026, which saw the youth’s dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs expressed through a number of protests—by industrial workers in the Delhi-NCR belt over low wages and poor working conditions, then by students protesting the cancellation of the NEET exam, and again in states like Jharkhand and Bihar over irregularities in recruitment exams for state administrative services.

Alakh N. Sharma, Director, Institute for Human Development, says jobs and wages are not keeping pace with economic growth. “Unemployment is a problem for the youth, especially in the educated segment in urban areas. In rural areas, the young educated can still report themselves as being employed by working part-time in agriculture or a family enterprise, but for the urban, educated youth, there are few such avenues,” he says.

Sharma’s prognosis is backed by data from the 2025 PLFS report. People with secondary and above education reported the highest unemployment rates among all cohorts at 6.5% in 2025 versus 0.3% for persons who were not literate. Even those with coveted degrees such as engineering and MBA are struggling to find jobs.

HIGHER EDUCATION ISN’T HELPING

Across the country, engineers and management graduates are finding that their degree may open the door to the job market, but it doesn’t guarantee an offer. Students graduating from average MBA colleges say they are increasingly finding themselves caught between a degree and the skills that recruiters demand.

Take Ayush Negi. The 24-year-old completed his MBA from a university in Rishikesh, focusing largely on earning the degree, with little guidance on the practical skills needed to secure a job. The result, he says, is a widening gap between what students are taught and what the job market demands. Students graduating from average colleges may complete their degrees without a clear understanding of skills required for the roles they are applying for. The problem, he believes, begins much earlier, with limited career counselling and inadequate exposure to changing industry requirements during the academic journey.

His friend and batchmate, Dev Sharma, says recruiters hiring for junior-level roles are looking beyond qualifications and seeking candidates with at least the practical and technical skills needed to handle basic operations. “For students who have not been guided towards those skills during college, the gap becomes visible only when they enter the job market,” Sharma says.

Both Negi and Sharma are on the lookout for jobs and continue to apply to various companies. These issues were also highlighted in a recent report by global hiring platform Indeed, which revealed that India’s young jobseekers are facing a more competitive and increasingly complex transition from education to employment, with 70% saying securing a first job is harder today than it was three to five years ago.

“New data from Indeed highlights how entry-level hiring expectations are evolving amid rising competition, limited career exposure opportunities and growing pressure on young professionals to compromise early in their careers,” says Indeed’s Fresher Hiring Report, based on a survey of 2,633 job seekers across India.

Sashi Kumar, Managing Director, Indeed India, says July saw an uptick in job creation on the platform after some softening in the previous three months. While there has been a slowdown in jobs in IT, roles for younger people are available in admin and sales support, education and service roles, commercial support, people-oriented functions even in the current reasonably tough job market, he says. “Employers are looking for freshers who are upskilled, have good soft skills, can communicate well and function in a team environment,” he says, adding that there’s also a focus on having previous experience.

THE JOB SEARCH

Estimates from the labour ministry show India likely created about 168.3 million jobs in the six-year period from FY18 to FY24. But these have clearly not been sufficient to meet its rising labour force, which is the second largest in the world with an estimated 7-8 million entrants annually. The scale of the mismatch is stark. Data from the National Career Service (NCS) portal shows that by July 2026, there were 28.9 million active jobseekers registered while there were only 1.76 million active vacancies, showing the huge mismatch between jobs and candidates.

“For every one job vacancy, we send 20 potential candidates,” says an official at a district employment exchange in Delhi, summing up the on-ground dynamics of jobs and jobseekers.

Walking into the office, it seems unusually empty. But the official says they get at least one or two walk-in candidates for enquiries. The others are registered on the NCS portal, he says. An employment fair is being planned with 250-300 jobs up for offer, largely from banks and insurance companies, for Class Xth and XIIth pass and graduates. “Many of these jobs are for telecallers but at least there are jobs available. We also have a few technical vacancies,” says the official.

Formal, salaried jobs with regular wages are few and far between, and several of these along with those in the informal sector have long working hours, poor working conditions, and inadequate pay and social security. The advent of AI and digitisation has also cast a pall of gloom over several sectors.

THE GOVERNMENT JOB

Meanwhile, over the years, government jobs have seen a steady decline with a rise in reported vacancies and a shift towards outsourcing. Adding to the problem is the cancellation of several recruitment exams. Official figures, last available as of March 2023, pegged the sanctioned strength of central government civilian jobs at 4.04 million, but only 3.06 million were filled, translating into a vacancy of 24.21%. Unofficial estimates put this number even higher.

Shiv Gopal Mishra, General Secretary, All India Railwaymen’s Federation (AIRF) and Convenor—National Council Joint Consultative Machinery (NC-JCM) Staff Side, who is also engaged in discussions with the Eighth Pay Commission, says that as of December 31, 2024, there were 4.03 million posts, of which 3.1 million were filled. “According to our estimates, there are nearly 0.95 million vacant posts in the central government for civilians,” he says.

Harbhajan Singh Siddhu, President, Hind Mazdoor Sabha says that there are an estimated 3 million vacancies across all government jobs including railways, port and dock workers, coal mines, roadways, PSUs and government ministries. “In railways, the staff strength has gone down to 1.2 million from 1.8 million earlier. In port and dock workers it is now about 18,000 from earlier the 0.5 million. In coal mines, there are only about 0.21 million regular employees and about 0.5 million contract employees,” he contends. 

Both Mishra and Siddhu point to the rise in contractual workers in government jobs and say they have long working hours and do not get the assigned salary, a large chunk of which is pocketed by the contractor. “There are about 1.1 million outsourced workers in central government – including railway – jobs. This helps save costs but leads to huge exploitation as these workers do not get the same benefits and salaries as regular employees,” says Mishra. 

He asserts that unemployment in the country continues to be a big issue. “Even if there are no paper leaks, where are the jobs for the youth? Look at what is happening in the government sector,” he says.   

Siddhu agrees that the focus is now more on outsourcing and contractual workers, which leads to exploitation of these workers. “New post creation is difficult in the government and current vacancies are not filled up. Even in sectors like schoolteachers, healthcare and state transport and roadways, the focus is more on hiring contract workers rather than regular employees,” he says. 

The Centre has taken measures to improve recruitment for public services and has been organising Rozgar Melas (employment fairs) to fill up vacancies in sanctioned posts. The process is undertaken through recruitment mechanisms and designated agencies such as the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), Staff Selection Commission (SSC), and Railway Recruitment Boards (RRBs). Since their launch in October 2022 with an initial target of 1 million government jobs, Rozgar Melas have been rapidly expanded and in 20 editions has facilitated the distribution of 1.27 million appointment letters till date, according to official data. 

The government is also considering a proposal for a common calendar for competitive exams that would ensure that dates do not clash and help candidates plan their preparation and travel in a smoother manner. 

But while the lure of getting a solid, dependable government job continues to have many takers, these account for an estimated 10% of the job market, and the onus of employment creation remains on the private sector. 

NO EASY SOLUTIONS

The Economic Survey of 2023-24 had asserted the need to create 7.85 million jobs annually on average till 2030 in the non-farm sector to meet the needs of the rising workforce. But that is easier said than done. Both students and employers talk about the disconnect between the classroom and the workplace. Experiments like the Prime Minister Internship Scheme have had a limited impact.

Experts reiterate the need to create more jobs in manufacturing, keep reskilling and upskilling, and getting vocational education into the mainstream. Sharma of the Institute of Human Development says in the short term, an unemployment dole or benefit could help the educated youth. In the rural sector, there was the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and now the VB-G RAM G but in urban areas, there is no such fallback for educated unemployed people. “However, it is also a matter of resources,” Sharma notes.

Chief Economic Adviser V. Anantha Nageswaran recently asked the private sector to focus on job creation and fair wages. “The private sector must invest, must hire and must compensate fairly and also invest in R&D because the next 20 years are going to be very different from the last 80 years post-World War II,” he had said at an Assocham event, adding that India has to find ways in which AI can be used to complement rather than displace labour.

But a bigger worry is also the large number of youth not in education, employment and training (NEET) the age group of 25-29 years followed by those in 20-24 years. “The age group 15–29 years represents a crucial phase of transition from education to the labour market, characterised by significant shifts in individuals’ engagement with schooling, skill acquisition and employment,” the report noted.

ILO says that NEET shows the progress in the effective integration of young people into the world of work. A recent report by NITI Aayog had pegged the absolute number of those in NEET youth at 87 million based on the NSS 78th Round, which was collected during the Covid-19 pandemic (FY 2020–21). “…the youth NEET percentage is significantly lower in the most recent PLFS round 2025,” the government later underlined.

More recent data on district-level labour market statistics revealed that a high population of youth in nearly a fourth of 250 districts was not gainfully employed or in education or training. In all, 23.7% of districts recorded NEET rate above 30% for youth in the age group of 15-29 years, it revealed.

While there may be no magic bullet that will suddenly wipe away this problem, the youth protests of 2026, however, make it clear that from being just an economic problem, unemployment could become a social one as well.

What’s more, India’s demographic dividend is slowly ending. A report by Moodys’ Ratings says India is expected to move from an “aged” to a “super-aged” society in 16 years. “Although India’s population is relatively young, fertility has already fallen below replacement, and the country’s age structure is beginning to shift, setting the stage for a much older population later this century,” it warned.