Jobs agenda a policy orphan ---A job narrative for polls and the

economy

I may disagree with the food security and land reform bills, but admire the
political courage to ram them through. Polls can galvanise action, political
consensus is not a prerequisite for policymaking, and the only thing worse than
being wrong is being confused. But why is the jobs agenda a policy orphan?
The complexity or impossibility argument does not fly; the thousands of young
job seekers this writer met at a recent job mela had five problems. These
problems create an opportunity for a party willing to offer a jobs narrative that is
specific, finite and actionable. Let's look at each problem and a short- and longterm solution to each.
I can't get a job despite my education: This does not mean she will be
unemployed; it means the jobs she is getting pay her a salary she could have got
without her education. The mismatch between what the education system
produces and what employers want is huge.
The short-term solution is setting up a national network of community colleges
offering two-year associate degrees - not normal degrees on a diet but vocational
training on steroids. The long-run solution is to shift the focus of the Right to
Education Act from enrolment to learning because we now know that you can't
teach somebody in three months or three years what they should have learnt in
12 years.
I can't get a job without work experience: A toxic consequence of India's 90%
informal employment is that fresher hiring is down from 50% of total positions to
10%. Why would employers risk taking a starry-eyed fresher who is unrealistic
about the workplace when you can get somebody with two years of work
experience in informal employment at the same cost?
The solution is rewriting the Apprenticeship Act of 1961. Only 2.5 lakh
apprentices is a national shame, because learning-by-doing and learning-whileearning are powerful vehicles for skill development.
I can't live on half my gross salary: India has one of the highest mandatory
payroll confiscation regimes in the world for low-salary workers: 48% of gross
salary is taken away for PF, ESI, I, EPS, LWB and so on. This ensures that 100% of
net job creation since 1991 has happened in the informal sector where gross
salary is equal to net salary. PF is the world's most expensive government
securities mutual fund (fees of 440 basis points) and ESI is the world's most
expensive health insurance scheme (claims ratio of only 50%).

The short-term solution is to allow EPFO participants to pay into NPS and
employees to buy health insurance instead of ESI. The long-term solution is to
reduce this 48% to 25% because in a cost-to-company world, benefits are not
over and above salary but come out of it.

I can't migrate to a metro on my salary: Employers care about nominal wages

but job seekers care about real wages. Entry-level salaries have not kept up with
the costs of living in a metro. But India's job magnets - Gachibowli, Magarpatta,
Bangalore, Gurgaon and Mohali - are high-quality, low-cost, mixed-use
environments.
India only has 50 cities with more than a million people, while China has more
than 300. India's six lakh villages - two lakh of which have less than 200 people will not be job magnets.
The short solution for this is development of 50 cities into cluster based
manufacturing and service hubs with high quality infrastructure (roads, metro
rail, healthcare& colleges).
I don't know how to get a job: Kids and employers have a matching problem
because of geography, time, and low signalling value of education. The matching
problem is amplified for rural youth coming off farms.
The short-term solution lies in fixing our 1,200 employment exchanges - which
gave three lakh jobs to the four crore people registered - by making them career
centres that offer counselling, apprenticeships, assessments, training and job
matching. The long-term solution is an explosion in manufacturing jobs in DMIC
(Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor).
Parentage and location have become important in getting jobs. But this tragedy
can be ended by reforms in education, employment and employability. The 2014
elections will have many first-time voters who have no memory of pre-reform
India. But politics is made of stories. Indian politicians are short of narratives: so
how about a jobs one, which appeals to the young and does no harm to the

economy?