PhD holders are applying for peon jobs seen on social media.
Youngsters told solar training has jobs, only to find themselves unemployed, turning to online portals to share their grievances.
State governments tackle unemployment by replacing unemployed youth with aspirational youth.
These statements, while anecdotal, paint a picture of the youth employment crisis in India, and it’s not pretty. The job landscape is in a period of shift, with automation being one of the major reasons, alongside the sheer number of applicants for any job. This is a given, because we are the most populous country in the world despite having only 2.3% of the land area. Additionally, a huge majority of our population is young workers looking for employment.
In the past, people may have blamed a lack of education or skills on the part of the youth for such issues. Some have been seen on social media arguing that reels have replaced jobs. Yet, the fact also remains that the influencer or creator economy was reported to be on the rise in 2025 in India.
Let’s take a deeper dive into the subject.
The reason behind India’s rising number of unemployed youth
Despite India’s rapidly growing economy, most of its workers are in the informal sector, especially women workers, according to some online sources. While a part of this makes sense, given that we still have a majorly agrarian economy, it also highlights the lack of formal jobs, especially from large private companies. Additionally, while sectors like manufacturing remain slow to grow, and very likely to be affected by automation, a major sector that had seen a rise in jobs- the IT Sector- was seen facing mass layoffs and job cuts in 2025. A 2025 World Bank report showed that in India, youth unemployment is 10% for males and 11% for women. This has forced them into informal-sector jobs or self-employment under low-paid, contractual agreements and horrible working conditions.
Creatives also said that they suffered under the AI boom, with many writers and artists being replaced by AI, the results of which, according to the author, are seen in the mass demonetisation of AI channels on YouTube. The quality of AI work has seen some return to human creators, but the market is tough regardless, if young people are to be believed, especially creatives.
In fields like psychology and some other service-care fields, many spoke about the stigma therapists face for charging their patients, the lack of resources for the budding therapist, and more on platforms like LinkedIn that were accessed in 2025.
Many who complained about how India is creating startups that provide services like 10-minute delivery as opposed to the technology boom in other countries have heard answers like a short from Avery TV, which shows the state of R&D funding in India and how that affects the kind of startups we can create and the jobs we create.
While there are those who choose to be self-employed to be entrepreneurs or want to be freelancers for perceived flexibility and better pay, there are also those who are forced into low-paid gig work due to a lack of demand for their skills or other systemic factors. As we saw in the worker strike at delivery platforms, the gig economy isn’t the best for many, or so they say.
A good job needs a lot in this fashion. It depends on whether the potential employee was taught the right skills, for one. This author feels that some Indian educational institutions prefer teaching obsolete skills without also teaching the modern applications or how to use upcoming tools, but that’s not true across the board.
Hence, we see an army of well-educated youth with little to no practical skills.
Another factor this author has heard in their circles that complicates matters is that many parents tend to pressure their children to get degrees over skills, thinking the degree and certificates alone are not enough to secure jobs. The author has heard fellows complain that while important, many fail without realising that both degrees and skills are necessary, especially in the highly competitive market our population boom has created. Yet, the author has also seen anecdotal evidence that in some jobs, certain degrees have seen better placements than others.
Another reason behind the increase in youth unemployment in India, pointed out by youth themselves on platforms like YouthKiAwaz, is how they are trained in skills which still don’t have jobs, like solar-related work. Or if there are jobs, they require migration and staying in another area, which is unaffordable. While some suggest increasing medium and small-scale industries to increase jobs, as they’re slow to advance and highly labour dependent, upskilling still remains important, and that requires an investment of time and maybe money, which many working youth may not be able to afford, thus increasing their chances of ending up unemployed.
Add to this the fall in productivity and ability to travel due to extreme weather events. Or women’s double shifts.
There are solutions such as promoting skills, preferring humans over automation when viable, training programs and helping people migrate to better jobs, actually creating green jobs, and a better education system. Yet, an individual worker can only do so much with a constantly updating CV that shows their skills and degrees or expertise in this era of rising unemployment.
If we wish to keep Indian youth in India, one of the challenges is giving them fulfilling work that enables them to have financial security, but there are other factors too, some of which governments are working on by implementing policies and grants, such as financial assistance to unemployed educated youth, and yet we see a rise in unemployment as of January 2026.
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