Sher Verick

Promoting youth employment has become a crucial priority for policymakers worldwide, particularly in developing countries where governments seek to provide opportunities for a youthful population and take advantage of the well-recognized ‘demographic dividend’, which is critical for accelerating growth and prosperity. However, young people continue to experience much higher unemployment rates, usually around three times higher than for older adults, and are much more vulnerable to increases in unemployment during crises as witnessed in recent years. More concerning is that crises can have long-term effects for young people in their chances of finding decent employment. A more comprehensive perspective on the situation facing young people in labour markets is provided by looking at other indicators, including the share of young people not in employment, education or training (NEET rate), which went up during the COVID-19 crisis. In terms of employment quality, more than three out of four of the world’s young workers are informally employed with young people also overrepresented in working poverty and less-protected forms of work. Against this backdrop, this chapter presents the latest global and regional trends across key labour market indicators that highlight both progress and challenges for young people, with a specific focus on the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on youth employment. An important finding is the divergence between low- and high-income countries. The chapter then explores policy responses, including the latest evidence on the effectiveness of active labour market programmes, before highlighting the different dimensions needed to adequately address youth employment challenges, especially in developing countries.

Over recent decades, the Indian economy has grown rapidly, particularly since the opening up of the economy in the early 1990s. Despite robust economic growth, the performance of the Indian labour market has been mixed. Contrary to the widely held view that India has experienced ‘jobless growth’, the data reveal strong employment growth in urban areas for men, while a decline in rural parts of the country for women. One of the key challenges is, indeed, the low rate of female labour force participation. In addition, the uncertain process of structural transformation has resulted in fewer workers joining manufacturing with most workers still in agriculture or construction. Overall, informality continues to be a defining feature of the Indian labour market, though aggregate figures mask underlying trends. Labour markets in India and beyond are being buffeted by megatrends, including globalization and technology, which result in both opportunities and challenges. Though various employment-related policies are in place, more needs to be done to promote decent and productive jobs through both comprehensive and targeted strategies. Stronger monitoring and evaluation are needed to ensure that lessons are learnt, and adjustments are made in policies and programmes. Finally, social dialogue, with the participation of employers’ and workers’ representatives, is crucial to arrive upon inclusive and sustainable solutions.

The faster growth of rural non-farm employment (RNFE) in the last decade in India attracted considerable analytical alteration, some even anticipating it as an indication of an alternative path of structural change. This chapter analyzes the changes in RNFE in terms of gender, class, activity, and quality. The analysis presented in this chapter finds a significant shift in favor of RNFE in both principal status and subsidiary status, with the rise in the former is driven by male workers’ share, it is female labor in the latter. In terms of class, the shift from agriculture to non-agriculture is more pronounced among poorer households; construction is the major absorber of labor in non-farm activities but increasingly casual in nature. Manufacturing, though small, is moving from self-employment toward regular and casual wage employment, construction increasingly toward casual wage employment, and services toward self-employment and regular employment. Qualitatively RNFE is increasing casual in nature.