Overqualified-Unemployed demographic dividend of India

The current section of the data covers applicants of Group D examination conducted in 2017-18. Majority jobs include office peons, trackman(gangman), porters, khalasi and electricians.

19 million Indians applied for 62,097 jobs

Indian Railways is the largest employer in India (eighth largest in the world), with more than 1.4 million total employees
World’s largest computer based recruitment exam
Representation of the youth (18- 29 years of age) labour force actively seeking a source of secured income
The number of applicants were much more than the total population of more than 150 countries

Education & Employability

Over 4 million graduate (including 0.4 million with engineering degrees) & 0.8 million post-graduate students applied for unskilled manual labor-intensive jobs
A whoping 41 thousand M.tech degree holders and 57 thousand MBA students applied for office peon jobs
Roughly 40% of 48 million enrollment in higher school education

Provides snapshot of conventional educational options for the majority indian youth outside metropolitan cities. Majority of students enroll in skill training/ITI programs learning technical, equipment handling skills rendered futile with no/minimal link to changing industry requirements.

Education-Wage Mismatch

Is the Private sector not coming up with jobs ?
- or is the absorption lesser than as claimed by the increase in PF accounts?
- are threats from automation kicking in? {(to check) - From PLFS: Change in occupational structure}
Also throws light on the quality of education, especially professional degrees

That being said, the lure of govt jobs is without doubt has its additional perks - Group D jobs compensate Rs 18,000 pm - Complemented with job security, HRA, CGHS, healthcare - Socio-cultural validation

Minimum wage for unskilled worker in the unorganised sector is ~Rs 5,000 pm (recently revised to Rs 178 per day)
Previous NSS surveys have shown that the wage premium on education has improved in India over the years, but there is still massive scope for improvement
According to the latest labour force survey (2017-18), for workers in the age bracket of 18-29 years, the average nominal wage for 10th pass worker is around Rs 6700 pm, Rs 7600 pm for senior secondary (XII) passout, Rs 11,400 pm for a graduate and Rs 12,700 for a post graduate and above studied worker (includes regular salaried/self employed individuals, excludes casual wage earners). Unsurprisingly, a substantial number of labour force is drawn towards these higher paying secured government vacancies
With rising unemployment (amongst the educated youth), underemployment (as indicated by workers with additional hours available for work) has also been a norm

Geography of Labor Supply

Disproportionately higher number of applicants from UP & Bihar (proportional to population)
- Signals both of state capacity and competence
54% applicants hail from villages, 15% from Tier-2 towns & 31% from cities
Geographical details by pincode and district

Proxy Census of India:

With its size and scale, the dataset covers the largest demographic profile of India, following only Indian Census of 2011. The following National Family Healthcare Survey (NFHS: 2016) over 1 million and National Sample Survey (NSSO: 2017) over 1.3 million respondents were covered. Moreover, NSSO was recently discarded. The RRB data is at comparatively higher geographical resolution.

Media Coverage:

Work in Progress:

Proxy Census
Job Crisis in India
- How it fares with PLFS (wage differential) and private sector
- Demand side: check labor demand from Eco Census
What determines Subject Selection:
- Educational profile by states-districts (marks obtained)
- Geog of labor supply: disaggregated
- Migration and State Capacity