The most lucrative export of India.

It is not possible to measure the unemployment rate in India because so many people stop looking for work that the labor force participation rate (LFPR) is only around 40% in India while it is 60-70% in comparable countries, wrote Udit Misra. "For this reason Mahesh Vyas, CEO of CMIE, advocates using the 'employment rate' (or henceforth ER) to properly understand what is happening to unemployment in India." The Election Commission has announced dates for Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh (UP), Goa, Manipur, Punjab and Uttarakhand, NDTV. In each of these states the ER has fallen from September-December period in 2016 to the same period in 2021. In UP it has fallen from 38.5% in 2016 to 32.79% in 2021. "Between December 2016 and December 2021, India's LFPR fell from 46% to 40% and the employment rate fell from 43% to 37%. As a result, India's total working age population has increased from 96 million to 108 million, but the total number of people in employment has decreased from 41.2 million to 40.4 million." If people are not working then, "India's most abundant resource remains tragically underutilized," wrote Ajit Ranade. "Amid the pandemic-induced boost to the digital economy, our information technology sector has been on a recruitment binge. New hires are expected to triple in 2022. But that is hardly a drop in the ocean of nearly 500 million looking for meaningful work." "A remarkable feature of Indian employment in the 2000s is the extent to which jobs have been monopolized by men in older age groups," wrote Avinash Celestine. "Combining survey data with Census population projections shows that even between 2005 and 2012, men aged 30-59 years (who account for less than 30% of the population) snapped up almost 65% of the jobs created outside agriculture. By 2020, this had risen to over 72%." That is probably because firms want to employ only proven workers, with good references from previous employers, who will not need to be trained. "This year, India's employability has improved marginally to 46.2% up from 45.97% last year, according to the latest findings of India Skills Report (ISR) 2022," ET. 51.44% of women and 45.97% of men are highly employable. According to the Center for Monitoring the Indian Economy (CMIE), the unemployment rate for college graduates is 19.3%, almost three times higher than the national average, wrote Mihir Sharma. Which means, "Forget about growing rich: An India in which less than half of the working-age population is even looking for a job is not one that will be able to escape poverty before it grows old." While vast numbers of young people are unemployed in India, "India serves to be a steady and reliable talent factory to the world -- providing CEOs, software engineers, academicians, doctors, nurses, and a host of skilled workers," wrote Dr Kiran Somvanshi. "While India is not able to provide enough job opportunities for its steadily rising young population; this failure has, over the decades, helped address the global demand for skilled talent." Hence, India received inward remittances worth $87 billion in 2021, BS. Exporting abroad while depriving at home. Typical resource curse.