Monitoring Desk
WASHINGTON: Youth employment remains a serious challenge for India with the rate reaching 23.2 per cent in 2022, despite a sustained high growth rate as Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government has failed to create jobs to accommodate the young people.
The latest data released by the World shows that the youth employment rate in India is the second-highest in South Asia where the crisis-hit Sri Lanka tops the list with 26.1pc.
As far as the other countries in the region are concerned, Nepal has a 20.6pc youth employment rate followed by Maldives 15.7pc, Bhutan 14.7pc and Bangladesh 12.9pc.
Interestingly, Pakistan, despite facing a severe economic crisis, has occupies the seventh spot in South Asia with 11.3pc of its youth being unemployed.
However, there is marked decrease in the case of India when compared with the figures for 2020 when it had reached 30.9pc.
But the decrease for Pakistan is very little as the youth employment had peaked at 11.9pc against 11.3pc in 2022.
On the other hand, China witnessed an increase for the fifth year in a row with the rate reaching 13.2pc. It was 9.7 in 2018.
Youth employment is one of the main issues the Chinese’s economy is facing amid economic slowdown, complicating the state of affairs by also reducing domestic consumption.
Meanwhile, Argentina, where its peso is tumbling at an alarming rate with a triple-digit inflation, the youth unemployment rate has declined to 18.6pc against 30.4 in 2020. The neighbouring Brazil has 21.4pc jobless youth when compared with 30.5 in 2020.
When it comes to Europe’s powerhouses, the situation is the worst in Italy with the rate reaching 23.9pc followed by France 17.8, United Kingdom 9.9 and Germany 5.8.
In Middle East, the percentage of jobless youth is highest in Jordan at 39.8. The figures for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are 23.8pc and 9.3pc respectively.
