Over 4 million youths in India lost jobs due to pandemic

More than 4 million youths in India has lost their jobs due to the COVID-19 pandemic with most job losses in the construction and farm sector, according to a joint report by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the Asian Development Bank.

Titled ‘Tackling the Covid-19 youth employment crisis in Asia and the Pacific’, the report indicated, “For India, the report estimates job loss for 4.1 million youth. Construction and agriculture have witnessed the major job losses among seven key sectors.”

The report outlined the severe challenges that young people in Asia Pacific face in their employment prospects due to the pandemic.  It also added that youth will be hit harder than adults (25 and older) in the immediate crisis and risk bearing higher longer-term economic and social costs.

The report is based on a regional assessment of a global survey and arrives at estimates based on available unemployment data in different countries.

It called on governments in the region to generate jobs for the youth by adopting urgent, large-scale and targeted measures to keep education and training on track, and to minimise future impact of more than 660 million young people in the region.

Even before the pandemic in 2019, the regional youth unemployment rate was 13.8%, compared to 3% for adults; and more than 160 million youth (24% of the population) were not in employment, education or training.

“The pre-crisis challenges for youth are now amplified since Covid-19 hit. Without sufficient attention, our fear is that this risks creating a ‘lockdown generation’ that could feel the weight of this crisis for many years to come,” said Sara Elder, lead author of the report and head of the ILO Regional Economic and Social Analysis unit.