You watching News Made Easy, I am on Indio Chakravart, the Indians have stopped looking for work. Is that because they have given up the hope of getting good jobs or is it because some of them have become so affluent that they do not need to work at all. But first the data, this data is from the Center for Monitoring Indian Economy, CMI, which is the largest and most respected private collector of employment data. They collected every week and they publish it regularly for people to look at. And the latest data that we have for say from CMI and that is it's a comparison between what has happened in 2016-17 to 2021-22, five years. What's happened in the years working age population which is of course those are above 15 years of age that is gone up by 121 million. Because population is increasing in five years that is what has happened. In the same period however those who want to work, those are actively looking for work or who will work if they get work which CMI calls the greater labor force has dropped by 22 million. So the population has increased of working age population has increased but those looking for work has dropped sharply. Now in terms of percentage in 2016-17 it was a shade below for 50 percent. So a shade below a half of those who were in the working age looked for work which is a bad number by the way for a developing country where the number should be closer to 60-70 percent but less than half were looking for work at that time. What has happened in the last fiscal 2021-22? That labor force participation rate has dropped to just 42 percent. Now as I said you could argue that this is because more younger people, especially young adults between the age of 15 to 19, they stop looking for work because they are studying. They are going to school or registering for college courses and therefore they do not need work anymore. They are not looking for work so obviously that number will drop and also another thing that might have happened is that because more people are becoming affluent in a country like India where there are a lot of traditional families. Women have stopped going out to work to earn money. So they have to do all the work at home but they are not going out to work to earn money and that is why their numbers might have fallen as well and on the face of it that is actually correct. Let me start with the data for young adults between the 15 to 19 age group and in 2016-17 about 1 in 4 out of them were looking for work which is not a significant number but you have to remember that these are young people most of them go to school or college. So only 24 percent of them were looking for work or wanted to work. Now in 2021-22 that number has dropped sharply to just 8 percent. Again on the face of it there is nothing wrong with that that is actually great news because that means that more of them are probably going to school or college. But what happens when you cross the 20 years threshold? The 20 years threshold is the 20 to 24 age group. There also the workforce participation rate has dropped. Again you could say that they are waiting for better jobs and maybe they are into higher studies now and maybe that is the reason they are not working. Again as I said let us look at the data. The labor force participation rate amongst those over 20 to 24 years used to be about 49 percent in 2016-17 which means a shade below half of them wanted to work. Now only 38 percent of them want to work which is in 2021-22. Again as I said that one could say that this is actually a good thing but what about those between the age of 25 to 39 which is essentially the period when one actually works very hard to develop one's career. More people amongst them should be looking for work. Let us look at the data there. What is happening there? Well even there the labor force participation rate has dropped from 58 percent to 56 percent. What about those between the 40 to 64 range? The peak of their career when they move from middle to senior run right 42. 64 years of age, last age before retirement what has happened there? Even there the workforce participation rate has actually fallen. It was 55 percent in 2016-17. It has dropped to just 51 percent in 2021-22. But ultimately workforce participation is one thing. The real test is how many people get jobs. If you look for jobs are you getting jobs? If fewer younger people are looking for jobs obviously the unemployment rate should drop right because who doesn't want to hire a young person? Who wouldn't want to hire someone between the age of 20 to 24 who have a lot of enthusiasm are willing to work long hours, work hard and probably you can pay them less right? So given that their labor force participation rate has dropped as I said by 11 percentage point there should be a higher demand for people like that their unemployment rate should drop sharply but here is the unemployment rate picture for them. In 2016-17 32 percent of them were unemployed those who were looking for work. That's a massive rate right? One out of three who was looking for work couldn't get a job but what happened in 2021-22 when the labor force participation rate of these people has reduced their availability reduced? Their unemployment rate has risen to 48 percent. Half of them who look for work do not get jobs in this young age of 20 to 24 and you can't blame it on COVID for 21-22 because most of that period was without restrictions. There was some in the beginning but if you look at it jobs have actually continued to drop throughout this period. So this drop in jobs is a result of lower employment opportunities. It is the lower employment opportunities the very high unemployment which is forcing young people to leave the labor force and get out of it and not even look for work. Now take the case of women. Now as I said that there has been going on for a long time because in India women's labor force participation rate has always been pretty dismal right? And this has been we've been told repeatedly even in the UPA period that because people are getting affluent women are withdrawing from the workforce. Alright and we can see that that's happening. Affluence are not the workforce. People from the active labor force participation rate women used to be about 19 percent in 2016-17. 19 percent of women wanted work over looking for work. In 2021-22 that has dropped sharply to just 11 percent. Only 11 percent of women about 1 in 10 is looking for work. And the situation is worse in urban areas where about 18 and a half odd percent of women were looking for work five years ago. In 2021-22 that has dropped to less than 10 percent just 9 percent. In fact lower than 9 percent from CMI's calculations. You can see that women are withdrawing from the active workforce from which they will be paid. Maybe because they have to do more work at home and they can't afford to go out anymore. But as I said there are a lot of places where women are required. Jobs, jobs for which women are required and you could pay often they are paid less right? One would imagine that again just as young people the fact that only less than 10 percent of women or just about 10 percent of women actually look for work in urban areas less than 10 percent they should find it very easy to get jobs. But let's look at the unemployment figure here and how much more it is than men. So men's unemployment overall is right now is about 9 percent. This is both urban and rural. This is in 2021-22. But that amongst women is 27 percent. Three times that are men. 27 percent. If you take urban areas the unemployment rate amongst men is 12 percent. Amongst women it is 36 percent. Again three times it is clear that women are not looking for work because they don't get work. Men can leave the village, come and work at a construction site. They can be itinerant workers. They might have to travel for two hours every day to go to work and come back for living this in far away from the city, work in the city and come back. Women can't do that. That is the key reason they're falling off the chart. They may be earlier they were hiring someone also generally women to look after the house. Now they don't have enough family income to do that. They have to do it. It doesn't make economic sense for them to go out and earn money because the costs involved. Both financial and family costs are much higher than what one would have to pay for what one would earn outside. So that is the reason women are falling out of the labour force. Young people are falling out of the labour force because there are not any jobs from them. This is absolutely untrue that they are leaving the labour force because they want to study or because they're affluent. They simply don't have jobs that is clear from their high unemployment rate. That's the show today. Keep watching NewsClick. Like this video. Share it as well.