Millions of youths lost chances, or became overage

The past two years of the Covid pandemic troubled people in different ways. Some lost their jobs, some lost their business, and many others lost opportunities to shape their careers. One the one hand, eligible candidates could not appear in competitive exams, and on the other hand, lakhs of candidates became overage too. Now these youths are frustrated and confused. During this period in Haryana, the youth who wanted to join the army became overage or ineligible to apply for the jobs. The number of such youths who became overage for military recruitments is more than two lakhs. Apart from this, everything came to a standstill for two full years, due to which 10 thousand youth were deprived of recruitment in the state. Now these youth are desperate. It is obvious that there will be millions of such youth in other states too who may have been overaged for not only the army but for many other competitive exams too and are now worried. The concerned departments and ministries should do some planning for them so that such youths do not get discouraged or lose hope. According to the Center for Monitoring Indian Economy, between September and December 2021, the number of unemployed in the country was 31.8 million, most of whom were below 29 years of age.

In the year 2020, 29.3 million youth were unemployed at the time of lockdown. These figures are of those youths who kept applying here and there in search of work. There are about 12.5 million unemployed youth who have become frustrated due to lack of work and do not apply anywhere. By including these too, the figure of unemployed youth reaches above 45 million. Rajasthan has the highest number of unemployed in the country, where 6.5 million people are unemployed, including about 2.1 million graduates. Bihar is at number two, where about 3.9 million youth are unemployed. Uttar Pradesh is at number three in this list with 284.1 million unemployed. With the onset of the third wave of Covid, the unemployment rate in India started increasing once again. The unemployment rate in the country stood at 7.9 per cent in December 2021, while it was 7 percent in November 2021. In December 2021, the unemployment rate in urban areas reached 9.3 per cent.

It is estimated that more than 80 percent of employers search for new employees on social media. According to Jobcast, 93 percent of employers use LinkedIn for new hires. Similarly, 66 percent of employers use Facebook for this, and 54 percent use Twitter. Talking about job seekers, only 36 percent of people are on LinkedIn, 40 percent are on Twitter, and the highest 83 percent are on Facebook. LinkedIn has also started its Hindi service and for this the company has promoted the service through newspapers and radio. Clearly, LinkedIn is now looking for Hindi-speaking users, as companies around the world are looking for Indian talent and they see a lot of potential in India. Through social media, such people easily get jobs, whose profile is good, as well as whose name has been referred to by many people. It also makes it clear that job seekers should not post content that defames their image on their social media.

(Writer is a senior journalist & columnist)