On 11th August, 2022, International Labour Organisation (ILO) has released the Global Employment Trends for Youth 2022 report. Some of the India specific findings are:
Declining Youth Employment Participation Rate: It declined by 0.9 percentage points over the first nine months of 2021 relative to its value in 2020, while it increased by 2 per cent points for adults over the same time period.
Unequal Access to Online Education: School closures lasted 18 months and among the 24 crore school-going children, only 8% of such children in rural areas and 23% in urban areas had adequate access to online education.
Learning Regression: School closures not only prevented new learning but also led to the phenomenon of “learning regression”, that is, children forgetting what they had learned earlier.
Highly Informal Domestic Work: It added that domestic work is a highly informal sector in India, wages are extremely low and young women and girls are vulnerable to abuse.
Role of MGNREGA: The report appreciated the MGNREGA and said it has played an important role in providing paid employment, particularly for women, but also in carbon sequestration because of the Act’s focus on natural resources, such as land, water and trees, which provide adaptation benefits.
