How can we eradicate Unemployment in our country?
Unemployment has been a significant issue that our nation is facing for more than five decades. Kamal Hassan’s “Varumaiyin Niram Sivapu” clearly depicted the severity of unemployment in the 70’s and 80’s. Unfortunately, both the GoI (Government of India) and PoI (People of India) never tried to solve it.

India is a nation, gifted with many natural resources such as Aluminum, Bauxite, Gold, Uranium, etc., and most importantly abundant Human supply. India holds one-seventh of the world population yet we are still considered as a developing country or in other words a “poor nation.” We even lag behind many underdeveloped nations in certain aspects.
But this was not the case just 300 years back. India held nearly 25% of the world GDP which is more than what the USA holds now. The ancient silk route was the busiest trade route in the World. Most of the world’s gold was dumped inside the Gajanaas of our Kings. But everything became upside down in 300 years. After two centuries of exploitation, we got independence from a tyrant country on Aug 15, 1947. Unlike in the old days, we became a single nation and began our journey with a dream of becoming a rich and powerful nation once again. The founding fathers of our country (I called them so because they were the people who put forth united India and hence the name) bore a huge responsibility on their shoulders.
Issues that India faced after Independence:
During the initial days as the Independent nation, our foremost requirement was to feed the poor three times a day, and that’s why Jawaharlal Nehru introduced several policies such as Green Revolution, five years plan, etc. so that our country can achieve self-sufficiency in food production. Later this helped the then Chief Minister of Tami Nadu, Kamaraj to introduce mid-day meals in the schools for more destitute children, the first of its kind in the nation, which was later implemented on a large scale by M.G. Ramachandran.
At the end of 80’s the nation started to provide at least one meal/day to nearly 70% of the population and now its been increased to 80% approximately. But the leaders who ruled after those great leaders didn’t bother much about the progress. They were keen on keeping their power in their hands as long as possible. It resulted in the lag in the economic development, and colossal unemployment let alone the corruption scandals. While our neighbor, a “communist” country, registered double-digit progress, India was trembling to maintain 5% mark.
However, everything started to fall apart when a crisis arose in the late 80’s. In 1991 it triggered a huge economic crisis which even threatened our existence. India has a lot of trouble in the balance of payments due to the swelling of imports and narrowing exports. It resulted in a massive trade deficit for the nation with its debts increasing to 53% of the GDP in 1991. The foreign reserves dried up to a record low level (500 million at the mid of 1991)where the government could pay for only three weeks of imports. India’s position was even lower than what Pakistan is now. Note, during that period Pakistan’s economy was most promising and flourishing mainly due to the foreign fund it received. India had to pledge its entire gold reserves for the loan to save itself from bankruptcy.
Then the Government woke up from its long sleep and under the leadership of Narashima Rao, the then Prime Minister of India roped Manmohan Singh as the Finance Minister of the Union and introduced several economic reforms. One of the policy enabled the IT industry boom in the country, and since 1991, the percentage that IT field had in the nation’s GDP is on continually increasing.
The boom and bane of the IT industry in India:
In the starting of the 21st century, there was a shift towards internet and is popularly called “Dotcom burst.” A lot of IT-based companies emerged, and an equal number of jobs related to the IT sector were created. Since India is known for cheap labor as the people were willing to work even longer hours at a much cheaper rate, companies in Western nations began outsourcing works to them.
Many IT companies were created to utilize this opportunity. More prominent companies like Infosys, Wipro, TCS, HCL started to hire a lot of skilled people thereby substantially reducing the unemployment among the youths also creating a new trend in both employment and education. These types of companies were called Service based companies in the IT sector, and it doesn’t require a lot of creativity or hard work. You have to finish the task given to you as fast as you can. People began to think, that working in those “IT” companies itself is a prestigious one and started to blindly adopt everything from their western employers to match with them. Since there is no risk of losing money as you’re not building any actual product and selling to it people, many service-based companies emerged in the initial decade of the 21st century.
This resulted in a lack of indigenous product based companies, and people without any choice started to use whatever the bigger players create whether it suits them or not. The best example could be credit card system and e-commerce. However, the IT boom has once again proven to be a mere bubble.
The USA, the primary source for most of the software projects, started following America first policy since due to outsourcing a lot of Americans lost their jobs to the Indians and Chinese. It has created a recession in the IT sector, and as a result, the same company which recruited people in thousands reduced it to a few hundred.
Moreover, they started to layoff unskilled workers in the name of expenses reduction. An employee who was earning thousands of rupees per month was now jobless. Again the wheel came to its origin. These kinds of the bubble will frequently occur, even in the future. It can neither be easily predicted nor can we prevent it. Then how can we solve this problem, provide jobs to people, increase our GDP?.
Time to say goodbye!:
The only way is to open a lot of new manufacturing industries and product companies. Only these type of Industries and companies can provide large-scale employment. That’s why the government started to push more for startups. Startup India movement helped many entrepreneurs to open up their venture and provide a lot of jobs, even for unskilled workers. The best example could be Swiggy, Zomato, and FoodPanda. They recruited a lot of unskilled labors to manage their logistics. Now at least a thousand people are working on these food delivery platforms, earning thousands per month.
This how we can solve the unemployment issue. A skilled worker can get a job at some point. But in the country like India, the unskilled workers outnumber the skilled and providing jobs to them is the only way to uplift them from poverty.
However, we have now developed a habit of protesting for everything. Like the IT and Engineering were once, protesting has become a trend and a common element in day-to-day life, especially in Tamil Nadu. The best example could be the Jallikatu and the Sterlite protests. Though those two were immediate concerns as Jallikatu is a traditional sport and the latter caused severe environmental issues, a lot of people participated in those protests without understanding even the basic concepts and problems created by them. Politicians were triggering the innocent people solely for their cause. A week-long silent protest had a violent ending and is the case in both demonstrations. Can’t we figure out what’s common here?
Published initially at theanalyzersblog.wordpress.com on September 5, 2018.
