India jobs crisis: Solution lies in thriving manufacturing sector
India’s growth story and jobs crisis: The release of India Out of Work: Rethinking India’s Growth Story, by Santosh Mehrotra and Jajati Keshari Parida, was a useful occasion to ask an old question that India keeps postponing: where will the jobs come from? The answer is not in doubt. They will not come from demographic arithmetic, nor from speeches on Viksit Bharat. They will come from productive enterprises that hire workers, raise wages, and move people out of low-productivity agriculture. India has too few of them.
India’s problem is not lack of growth. It is lack of the right kind of growth. The country is growing faster than most large economies. The IMF projects 6.5% real GDP growth for India in 2026. That is respectable. It is not enough to become Viksit Bharat by 2047. It is still less adequate if growth fails to move people from low-productivity work into higher-productivity jobs.