Young, educated and jobless in India

[CHIMO]

In 2005 I spent time with a student named Rajesh in Meerut College, in Uttar Pradesh. Rajesh was in his early 30s and had been studying in Meerut for 13 years. Like many long-time students there, he described himself as "unemployed", someone "just waiting".

There are many like Rajesh in Meerut and across northern India. Behind the image of tech-savvy IT specialists in India lies a dispiriting picture common throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America: a multitude of educated but unemployed young men.

The sources of this problem are not difficult to identify: rising education rates have led to higher aspirations around the world. At the same time, governments have often cut the public sector jobs upon which educated people formerly depended. The result in numerous places has been the "overproduction" of educated people: the "men hanging out on the street" that seem to feature in so many travel accounts and contemporary anthropologies of poorer countries.

Over the past 15 years I have been doing research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council on the problem of educated unemployment in Uttar Pradesh, whose 190m people make it India's most populous state. Many parents in Uttar Pradesh are able to finance school and university education for their children. But these graduates find it impossible to obtain salaried jobs.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/29/india-unemployment

[peacebird]

1. while I am sorry he is unemployed - as an American whose job is being outsourced to India

because the workers in India have lower cost of living and can accept a lower wage, I find it hard to be concerned about him. I have over 30 years experience in my field (with a BS degree) and as a professional I find it "annoying" to hear govt officials saying that Americas "problem" is a poorly educated workforce. The problem is not education or experience - it is that corporations are looking for the cheapest employees. Education is NOT what we need in todays environment - JOBS are.
The simple fact is that someone in India can work for less money than someone in the USA. Not that one is more qualified than the other, but it DOES cost more to have a basically "good" quality of life in the US than it does in India.

[47of74]

2. It's corporations wanting stuff for free

Or as little as possible. They all run for India/China/etc where they can get by with paying people very little to work in sweatshop conditions and they can wreck the environment to their shriveled up little heart's content.

[marmar]

3. I'm concerned for all the workers of the world who are unemployed and exploited....

.....It's not the workers in India who've caused these problems.....It's the rapacious slave-wage multinational corporations.

[Hestia]

5. I agree - if you read your history, it is how the Brownshirts came to life

50% unemployment, and nothing to do but hang out at the coffee shops, complaining about how things are. It was easy to manipulate them, then kill them after they served their purpose.

[CHIMO]

4. I Understand

In more ways than I wish to explain. I posted the article because we seem to view India as a monolith. Or as a competitor.

Watching Arundhati Roy's last interview with Amy Goodman, she listed some of the things where the people were being "pushed around" so to say.

With a population that is educated and unemployed and young one should expect some political changes.

If one listens to Arundhati she is supporting all the people aganist the corporations.
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/9/28/author_arundhati_roy_on_conflicts_and

[katkat]

6. my heart bleeds, not.

When I stop seeing U.S. jobs outsourced to India, and "tech support" lines staffed by ignorant unintelligent outside the U.S. people, and H1-B visa people taking U.S. jobs, then I'll shed a tear for Rajesh. Meanwhile, you've just improved my day.