Unemployment in Kerala on the rise, Karnataka shows improvement

Now, data released by the Ministry of Labour and Employment, as reported by the New Indian Express, reveals that the unemployment rate increased by 0.3 percent between the years 2013-14 and 2015-16.

So, 46.62 crore people were employed in 2015-16 while the figures for 2013 - 14 were 48.04 crore and 2012 - 13 were 43.67 crore. This means 3.7 percent unemployment rate in 2015-16, increased from 3.4 percent seen in 2013-2014 and 4 percent from the previous year of 2012-2013.

While these are the numbers proving that the decline in jobs exists, let’s take a closer look at the South. The report says that Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh witnessed an increase in unemployment rates while Karnataka, Odisha and Telangana showed slight improvement. Himachal Pradesh showed the maximum decline of 8.4 percent of unemployment rate.

Last year, the Asia-Pacific Human Development report had warned that India will see a shortage of jobs in the next 35 years. The report is in line with several others that believe employment generation in India's several sectors has slowed down. 12 million people seek for jobs every year and many of these jobs are in the informal sector, roughly up to 84 percent.

However, it also mentions skill deficit, which means even with shortage jobs there are several sectors that are short of skilled labours, blaming it on the education system that isn't able to impart skills that the economy requires. Job creation has remained one of the key concerns, and many believe demonetisation has a fair share of impact on jobs. Moreover, the Budget 2017, many believe, hasn’t done enough for job creation.

Growing population and automation are also among some of the factors blamed for the crisis. Automation is believed to be slowly yet steadily replacing humans. For instance, HfS Research says that the IT sector to lose 6.4 lakh "low-skilled" jobs to automation by 2021.

On the other hand, the government has been pushing initiatives like Skill India and Make in India, which would pave way for foreign investment and eventually a lot more jobs.

• Job crisis
• Unemployment
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