Why there has been an increase in number of job seekers in India?

There has been an increase in the number of job seekers in India because of the following reasons:

• Due to increasing population, the size of labour supply in India is getting a boost from the rapid expansion of the working-age population in the country. Data shows that the population of 15-59-year-olds increased at the rate of 14 million a year in the 2000s.
• Increasing enrolment of young adults for education has resulted in rising their job aspirations. About 31 per cent of all 15-29-year-old females in India were attending schools or colleges in 2018 against 16.3% in 2005.
• The size of the workforce engaged in agriculture (and allied activities) has declined from 258.8 million in 2005 to 197.3 million in 2018 India. This decline has been partly due to the ‘push’ from low-productivity agriculture, which has suffered due to stagnant public investment from the 1990s onwards and ‘pull’ of new opportunities that emerge in the towns and cities.
• A significant number of these people were ‘employed’ in ‘disguised unemployment’ in agriculture. Young persons in rural areas will be increasingly keen to exit disguised unemployment in agriculture. As a result of all these factors, there has been a significant increase in the number of potential workers for the non-agricultural sectors.

The recent statistics show that the unemployment rates stood at 45 year high. The economic slowdown has adversely impacted the job creation and the increase in unemployment rates is also partially due to an increase in the number of those seeking jobs in non-agricultural sector.