Friday, April 15, 2022

What use are studies and reports?

A paper by Amit Basole et al reported that, "Of the 28 million unemployed persons in 2019-20, young workers in the age 15-29 age group accounted for 24 million," wrote Sudipto Mundle. A report by McKinsey Global Institute says that, "90 million jobs will have to be created between 2023 and 2030 (i.e. an annual growth of 1.5%) to clear the backlog of youth unemployment before the 'demographic dividend' window, the high working age share of the population, starts closing." "Among those who are employed, 90% are employed in unskilled or low-skilled jobs," while "the unemployment rate is as high as 35-40% among graduates and technical graduates," showing the low standard of our education system. "Women's Labor Force Participation Rate (LFPR) in the latest Periodic Labor Force Survey (PLFS) before the pandemic (2018-19) was just 18.6% compared to 55.6% for men," wrote Abhishek Jha. Abysmal. LFPR is the proportion of the working age population working or actively looking for work, Investopedia. The fall in LFPR has been most pronounced among rural women. Female LFPR has fallen by more than 20% in the 16 years since 2004-05, wrote Ajit Ranade. "As per a report by the International Labor Organization. India ranks 121 out of 131 countries on female LFPR." According to the World Bank, India's female LFPR was lower than that of Sudan, Saudi Arabia and even Pakistan in 2020. There are many social causes, such as childcare, having to travel long distances to work and personal safety, for women's reluctance to work. Ironically, "The pro-women law of 2016 that mandated 26-week maternity leave could have perversely decreased rather than increased women's participation in the workforce, as companies may have grown more reluctant to recruit women of child-bearing age. Teamlease had estimated an additional loss of 1.8 million female jobs attributable to this piece of legislation alone." No job means no earnings, so people have gambled on the stock market. The total number of investors has jumped to 89.6 million, "With addition of 34.5 million accounts in FY22 (2021-22) alone," so that the Nifty50 index gave a return of 18.9%, FE. Foreign portfolio investors sold Indian shares worth $17.1 billion but domestic institutional investors bought shares worth $29.8 billion in FY22. The share of stocks in total savings of Indians is at a record high of 4.8%, TOI. Large numbers of Indians, especially the young, are first time investors in cryptocurrencies, IBEF. The 2022 Budget has been ruthless on crypto investors with a flat 30% tax on profits but no relief on losses, ET. "The trouble with retail investors is that they start investing after they have seen a considerable amount of money being made," wrote Vivek Kaul. If you enter at the summit the only way is down. No jobs, no earnings and losses. What use are studies?

No comments: