Indian dreams end at government jobs.

"More than a quarter century after the liberalization of the economy and the burial of socialism, government jobs seem to be back in favour among India's aspiring classes," wrote P Bhattacharya and S Devulapalli. "But there is an even greater paradox in these demands: the most intense agitations for quotas in government jobs have been some of the most industrialized states: Gujarat, Maharashtra and Haryana." These three states, along with Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, "account for half of the country's industrial workforce, and also a majority of the new workers recruited since 2000-01, data from the Annual Survey of Industries (ASI) shows". Trouble is, the bulk of workers in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Haryana are contractual workers, who are paid less and are unsure of their jobs. Jats in Haryana, Patels in Gujarat and Marathas in Maharashtra are upper caste and well off but not well educated so they are agitating for government jobs. Half of all government jobs and seats in higher education are reserved for so called lower castes, it is 69% in Tamil Nadu. Naturally this angers other groups, who are struggling economically and who see it as unfair, so they are also agitating for their own quotas in government jobs. With 4.75 million joining the workforce every year jobs are most important for the young, but employment growth in the private sector fell from 4.2% last year to 3.8% this year. A study found that unemployment rate has increased to 6.9% in October 2018 and the labor participation rate, which measures the proportion of adults willing to work, has fallen to 42.4%, the lowest since January 2016. Figures for girls are even more dismal. Over 60% of girls are married by the age of 20 years. Only 3% of women have postgraduate degrees, while 60% have not finished high school. 75% of girls want to work but only about half are working or looking for work. Lack of employment opportunities creates a bottleneck for those wishing to escape from agriculture which employs over 40% of the workforce, wrote R Kishore. Which is what the Jats, Patels and Marathas are angry about. Only 10% of farmers have any financial savings or investments, wrote D Jain. "Given their low income, a few individuals have savings that would allow them to tide over contingencies and difficult circumstances." No wonder this government has stopped official surveys of employment levels in India, wrote Prof Himanshu. When people have no jobs hiding data will not stop them.