Where are the jobs: Youth unemployment remains high; fewer jobs for those with higher education in India

As the most populous nation in the world with the largest youth population, India’s demographic window of opportunity requires urgent policy intervention, with unemployment rates among the young remaining high.
 
Of concern is the sustained high levels of unemployment for youth in the age group of 15-29 years – in double digits, and especially those who are educated and are armed with degrees, completing secondary or even higher levels of education.

For context, India’s labour force is currently estimated at anywhere from 610 million to 640 million according to various estimates, and about 80,00,000 new workers are added to the labour force annually.  The India Employment Report 2024 had estimated that about 27% of the total population in 2021 consisted of youth, which is expected to decline to 23% by 2036.
 
“…India is expected to be in the potential demographic dividend zone for at least another decade. But the country is at an inflexion point…,” it had said.

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But jobs continue to be inadequate for the country’s labour force, and the aspirations of the youth for not only jobs but well-paying jobs remain unanswered for now.
 
The latest data from the Periodic Labour Force Survey for June 2026 shows that the unemployment rate for persons between 15 and 29 years of age was 16.2% last month as against the overall unemployment rate of 5.5%.
 
As per the PLFS annual report for 2025, youth unemployment declined to 9.9% in 2025 from 10.3% in 2024. The unemployment rate for youth in the age group of 15 to 29 years was 10% in 2023 and 10.9% in 2022.
 
Higher education has not had an impact on getting better jobs, and in fact, people with secondary and above education have the highest unemployment rates amongst all cohorts. The unemployment rate for persons with education of secondary and above level was 6.5% in 2025 versus 0.3% for persons who were not literate. In 2024 and 2023, the unemployment rate for persons with secondary education and above was 7%.

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This was also highlighted in the State of Working Indian 2026 report, which had highlighted that graduate unemployment among 15–29-year-olds continued to remain high, with nearly 40% of graduates in the labour force reporting open unemployment. “The problem of graduate unemployment has been magnified in recent years owing to the growing size of the graduate population,” it had said, adding that as of 2023, it estimated that 11 million out of 63 million graduates in the ages between 20 and 29 were unemployed.
 
The lack of jobs was not for the lack of trying. PLFS 2025 data show that of the unemployed persons, 54.7% had applied to prospective employers, answered job advertisements or looked for jobs at factories and worksites, while 6.6% of people had also registered with employment exchanges and 4% had registered with private employment centres.
 
The National Career Service portal of the government had over 60.2 million job seekers registered on it as of November 20, 2025.