The jobs crisis worsens

Economic slowdown is only partially to blame for the rise in unemployment. The principal reason is weak policies

India’s large and growing working age population, currently numbering close to a billion, is her greatest potential resource for rapid and sustained economic development. Sixteen years ago, I had warned that this demographic dividend could be squandered in the absence of the right policies (Business Standard , November 25, 2003, “Can India grow without Bharat?”, republished in 2007 by Academic Foundation in a book with the same title). Since then, successive governments have persisted with wrong or weak policies and programmes, including a poor public education and skilling system; an extremely complex and anti-job-creation maze of labour laws; trade and