Eight thousand miles away, across an ocean, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have desperately tried to woo youth and women before election day. Also in November, in the country of Kamala Devi Harris’s maternal ancestors, political parties are reaching out to 6 crore women voters and 2.5 crore youth in Maharashtra and Jharkhand. Raise your hand if you are a woman or between the ages of 18 and 30. They want your vote.

Campaigns of political parties in these two states are focused, from ‘Mati, Beti, Roti’ and ‘Ladki Bahin Yojana’, to ‘Maiya Samman scheme’ and a youth unemployment benefit scheme. The 8.5 crore voters in the youth and women demographic can clearly be the inflexion point.

But for all the pre-poll promises to youth and women, these statistics tell a story.

• About 75 lakh youth enter the labour force every year in India
• Youth unemployment rate has been at a high 10% for the last two years
• One in three youth are neither in education, employment, nor training. Women account for a staggering 95% of this group
• The urban female unemployment rate for 2023 averaged at nearly 9%. For young urban females, it was 20%
• In 2022, the unemployment rate was six times higher for individuals with secondary or higher education, and nine times higher for graduates, than those who could not read or write
• In 2023-24, the unemployment rate for graduates was at 13%, and postgraduates at 12%
• Unemployment rate among educated females is among the worst in the country, with 20% of graduates and 22.5% of post-graduates unemployed
• The Economic Survey reveals that half of all individuals are not ready to be employed upon graduating from college
• Only four out of ten youth in the workforce possess formal skills
• The female labour force participation rate is at 32%, compared to 58% for men. In urban areas, it is 28% for women compared to 60% for men

The Union government introduced a new internship scheme in October 2024 to reduce the unemployment rate in the country. A top company needs to train 4,000 people a year to achieve the target set by the Union government. Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that a private firm will need to spend Rs 20 crore every year to train youngsters. How many companies will?

Even after training, there is no guarantee that the trainees will be retained or find a job in the formal workforce. This is especially worrying since this scheme comes at a time when there have been job cuts by major companies across the globe.

Three Constructive Suggestions

Experts have suggested that a better way to roll out the scheme would have been by engaging Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) instead of big firms. Interns often gain more practical experience in smaller firms, and these businesses, in turn, benefit from an extra set of hands. Additionally, the likelihood of retaining interns and converting them into medium- to long-term employees would be significantly higher, creating a more sustainable model for both interns and MSMEs. This would also encourage and ease the transition of an own account establishment (establishment operated without any hired employees) to a hired worker establishment (establishment operated with at least one hired employee), which would benefit the economy more.

To tackle urban unemployment, the Union government should accept what many states have done, and the parliamentary standing committee on labour had suggested in its 25th report: create an employment guarantee programme for urban areas with special emphasis on women. States like Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand, Telangana, and West Bengal already run similar schemes.

An urban unemployment guarantee programme will be a step in line with the Right to Livelihood, which has been read into the Right to Life through judicial interpretation. Moreover, it will be a step towards turning the Right to Work (Article 41), currently a directive principle, into a fundamental right.

Joyce Banda, former President of one of the world’s poorest countries, Malawi, put it well, “The seeds of success in every nation on earth are best planted in women and children”.

Research credit: Dheemunt Jain

(Derek O’Brien, MP, leads the Trinamool Congress in the Rajya Sabha)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author