India must create 11.5cr jobs by 2030: Report

With more people entering the workforce by 2030, India needs to carry out the “herculean task” of creating 11.5 crore jobs, a study by global financial services firm Natixis SA said. This translates into 1.65 crore jobs each year, whereas it generated 1.24 crore annually in the last decade, it added.

Trinh Nguyen, a senior economist at Natixis SA, wrote in the study, “To achieve this herculean task, India’s growth engine needs to fire on all cylinders, from manufacturing to services in the next five years.”

While the economy generated 11.2 crore jobs over the last decade, just about 10 per cent of these were in the formal sector, Nguyen wrote, adding that India’s overall labor force participation rate stands at 58 per cent, much lower than its Asian peers, according to the World Bank.

A Bloomberg report quoted Nguyen saying that India’s services sector, contributing over half of the gross domestic product, has limited scope in terms of headcount and quality of labor. Therefore, the country can tap into the manufacturing sector and compete for firms and countries actively looking to diversify from a China-centric supply chain, she added.

“The incoming administration needs to jump on the manufacturing train and capitalize on demographic and geopolitical tailwinds,” she said. “Even if the road forward is challenging, it is never too late to walk down the right path.”