One morning last week, hundreds of youth gathered in front of a university campus in the country's northern state of Haryana.
Wrapped in warm clothes and blankets in the biting cold, these youth had gathered here in search of jobs outside India.
These youth had left their home with lunch, which was kept in the backpack on their back.
All these youth had come away from India to Israel to give practical examination for construction work like plastering, steel fixing or tiling.
Ranjit Kumar, who has completed his education from university, is a qualified teacher but till now he has not been able to get any permanent job.
He has sometimes worked as a painter, sometimes as a steel fixer, sometimes as a laborer, sometimes as a technician in a vehicle workshop and sometimes as a surveyor in a non-government organization. For them, this is an opportunity which they cannot let go.
Ranjit Kumar, 31, has two degrees and has passed the government's "trade test" to work as a "diesel mechanic", but he earns more than Rs 700 a day. Could never earn.
In comparison, if they work in Israel, they will get a monthly salary of Rs 1,37,000 ($1,648) along with accommodation and medical facilities.
Ranjit Kumar's passport was made only last year. To meet the financial needs of his family of seven, he is ready to go to Israel and work as a steel fixer.
He says, "There is no secure job here. The prices of things are increasing. I completed my graduation nine years ago but till now I have not been able to achieve financial stability."
According to reports quoting officials, Israel wants to employ about 70 thousand youth from China and India in the construction sector .
This sector has been badly affected after the Hamas attack on October 7 last year. According to the report, Israel has imposed a ban on Palestinians coming to work there, due to which there is a huge shortage of workers there. Before the Hamas attack, about 80,000 Palestinians were working in this sector.
It is being said that about 10,000 workers from India are going to be hired. For this, job applications are being taken from youth in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.
A test for this was organized at Maharishi Dayanand University in Rohtak city of Haryana, in which thousands of youth from across the country participated. (The Israeli Embassy in Delhi has refused to comment on this matter.)
Ranjit Kumar is not alone in this race, thousands of youth who stand in the queue with him and wait for their turn are part of India's huge and temporary informal economy, where they have to work without formal contracts and facilities.
Like Ranjeet, many of them have college degrees but are waiting for a permanent job.
Most of these youth are doing informal work like employment in the construction sector, in which they get Rs 700 for 15-20 days of work in a month. Every youth has brought his/her resume with him/her.
One of these youth told us that "I work in coordination with my team."
'Double blow of demonetization and Corona epidemic'
Many of these youth do two or more jobs at a time to increase their earnings.
Many blame the demonetization imposed by the Modi government in 2016 and then the lockdown imposed to stop the Corona epidemic in 2020 for their economic problems.
Many youth also complain about leaking of question papers in government examinations. Many say that they even tried to pay money to agents to go to America or Canada illegally, but were unable to collect the money for it.
He says that for all these reasons he wants to go abroad and do a secure and high-paying job and for this, "he is ready to work even in a war zone."
Sanjay Verma graduated in the year 2014 after which he did Diploma in Technical Education. For the last six years, he has been trying for a government job in police, paramilitary force and railways and has given dozens of examinations.
He says, "Jobs are less and the demand is 20 times more."
He says that in 2017, an agent had promised him a job of 600 euros per month to work on a farm in Italy, but he could not arrange Rs 1,40,000 for this.
Youth yearning for jobs: How deep is India's unemployment crisis?
Pointing towards demonetization and Corona lockdown, Prabhat Singh Chauhan says that the economy suffered two shocks one after the other and their financial condition became unstable.
35 year old Prabhat is from Rajasthan and works as an emergency ambulance driver. He gets Rs 8,000 per month for working 12 hours a day.
He says that he started taking construction related contracts in his village and bought six cars to drive on rent.
Like many other youth, Prabhat Singh also started looking for ways to earn money after finishing high school. He sold newspapers in school and earned up to Rs 300 a month.
After his mother's death, he worked in a clothing shop. When he could not find a permanent job, he studied mobile repairing. He says, "It didn't help much."
From about five to seven, his luck favored him and he earned well. On one hand, he himself drove ambulances and took construction work on contract in the village, while on the other hand, his taxis were running on rent.
But this series also ended before 2016. He says, "The lockdown of 2020 devastated me. I had to sell my cars because I could not pay the installments. Now I am once again driving an ambulance and taking contract work in the village."
Shubham Bhoi completed his graduation two years ago. He is still employed. He has applied for a job in Israel.
'There is no fear of war'
40 year old Ram Avtaar, resident of Haryana, works as a tile installer. He has 20 years of experience in this.
They are worried about the lack of increase in their earnings amidst the ever-increasing inflation. He says that it has become a big challenge for him to complete the education of his children. His daughter is pursuing graduation in science while his son wants to become a chartered accountant.
He looked for opportunities to work in countries like Dubai, Italy, Canada, but for this the agents ask for huge fees which is impossible for him to pay.
He says that along with food and daily needs, it is becoming difficult for him to meet the house rent and coaching expenses. He says, "We know there is a war going on in Israel. I am not afraid of death. We can die here too."
Amidst all this, there are some youth full of hopes like Harsh Jat. 28-year-old Harsh obtained a degree in Humanities in 2018. Initially he worked as a mechanic in a car factory, after which he worked as a driver in a police vehicle for two years.
He says he got tired of "drunk people using the emergency phone line" and left the job.
After this, Harsh worked as a bouncer in a pub in an affluent area of Gurgaon, where he got Rs 40,000 per month. He says, "In this kind of work, they throw you out after two years and these jobs are not secure."
Now Harsh Jat is unemployed and does farming work on his family's eight acres of land. He says, "In today's time no one wants to do farming work."
He says that he applied for government jobs like clerk and policeman but he did not get success in it.
He says that some youth of his village have given up to Rs 60 lakh to agents to go to America and Canada illegally. These people are now sending money from abroad to their homes in India and are helping them in buying expensive cars.
Harsh says, “I also want to go abroad and do a good paying job. I don't want my children to ask me tomorrow that when our neighbors have good cars and SUVs, why don't we have them?
He says, "I am not afraid of war."
Employment opportunities in India appears to be mixed. The data regarding unemployment given in the Periodic Labor Force Survey (PLFS) shows a decline in unemployment. While the unemployment rate was 6 percent in the year 2017-18, it was 4 percent in 2021-22.
Santosh Mehrotra, a development economist and visiting professor at the University of Bath, says this may be because unpaid work is also included in government data.
He says, "It is not that jobs are not coming. The matter is that on one hand jobs are not increasing in the formal sector and on the other hand the number of youth looking for jobs is continuously increasing."
According to the latest report of Azim Premji University's State of Working India, unemployment is decreasing but it is still very high.
According to this report, after stagnation in the 1980s, the share of regular wage or salaried workers in the economy started increasing in 2004. In 2004, it ranged from 18 to 25 percent for men and 10 to 25 percent for women.
But since 2019, regular wage jobs have declined due to "growth slowdown and pandemic".
According to this report, after the Corona epidemic, more than 15 percent of the country's graduates and 42 percent of the graduates below 25 years of age do not have jobs.
Roza Abraham, a labor economist at Azim Premji University, says, "This is the group that wants more earnings and is not interested in doing small temporary jobs. This is the group that is willing to risk life in the hope of higher earnings and job stability." Is ready (to go to Israel).
One of these youth is Ankit Upadhyay from Uttar Pradesh. He says he paid an agent, got his visa and went to Kuwait and worked as a steel fixer for eight years.
He says that the pandemic took away his job. He says, "I am not afraid of anything. I am ready to work in Israel. I do not care about the dangers there. Even within the country, there is no job security.
China's central bank comments on "double cuts" to rescue the market: It is difficult to save the economic downturn
Pan Gongsheng, governor of the People's Bank of China, suddenly announced a 0.5 percentage point cut in the deposit reserve ratio and a 0.25 percentage point cut in the re-lending and rediscount rates to support agriculture and small businesses. The news stimulated the inland port stock market and overseas Chinese assets to rise. Scholars believe that the central bank's "double cut" policy will be difficult to save the weak Chinese economy.
On Wednesday (24th), Pan Gongsheng, Governor of the People's Bank of China, suddenly announced that the People's Bank of China would lower the deposit reserve ratio by 0.5 percentage points on February 5 to provide the market with long-term liquidity of approximately 1 trillion yuan . He also announced that on January 25 , the re-loan and re-discount interest rates for supporting agriculture and small businesses would be lowered by 0.25 percentage points, and he would continue to promote a steady decline in comprehensive social financing costs.
After the above news came out , the mainland and Hong Kong stock markets and overseas Chinese assets immediately climbed, and the RMB exchange rate also rose sharply. Financial commentator Zheng Xuguang said in an interview with Radio Free Asia on Thursday that the continuous decline of A shares has caused the listing of new shares to be unable to play its financing function. However, the central bank's move can be said to be that water from afar cannot save people from near thirst. He said: "As long as after several rounds of interest rate cuts, the stock market will not fail to rise, and all asset prices will naturally rise. If your savings in the bank are charged fixed interest, you will suffer huge losses. The so-called bailout is inflation. In this way, When bank deposits are driven out, they actually enter the investment market."
Cutting interest rates to rescue the market raises inflation and disadvantages savers
Zheng Xuguang believes that the central bank's reduction in reserve requirements and interest rates is to increase market financing, provide a financing platform for large and medium-sized state-owned enterprises, and gradually spread to private enterprises.
At the beginning of this year, China's Hong Kong and A -share markets experienced large-scale declines. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index once fell below the level before the "reunification" in 1997, and the Shanghai Composite Index once fell to 2,700 points. This is different from major global stock markets such as the United Kingdom, the United States, and Japan. Form a strong contrast. U.S. media Bloomberg quoted sources as saying that after the stock market fell sharply, the Chinese government planned to launch a package plan to stabilize the stock market and inject it into the onshore stock market through the Shanghai-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect. In addition, the Chinese government is also seeking at least 300 billion yuan in additional local funds to save onshore stocks.
The central bank’s “double cut” policy cannot save the economy
Cai Shenkun, a well-known blogger and financial commentator, told this station that the People's Bank of China has once again "released water" to the market, but it will be difficult to save the economy in recession. He said that currently, Western countries are facing inflation, while China is facing deflation: "Under such a situation, the stock market continues to be sluggish. A few days ago, Li Qiang did not say that he would revitalize the capital market. The central bank announced a cut in reserve requirements and interest rates this time. Seeing that the stock market continued to fall this week, he did not have enough funds to rescue the market, so he used the so-called monetary policy tools."
Cai Shenkun believes that lowering reserve requirements and interest rates, as well as so-called support for agriculture and small businesses, cannot solve the fundamental problem. He said that these monetary policies can only have a temporary effect on the Chinese economy: "China's economy is in a downturn. It is not a matter of money that can save the economy. Fundamentally, it is still a matter of people's lack of confidence and the general lack of trust in the government." Crisis."
Cutting interest rates and releasing money to try to attract foreign capital to return
Financial scholar Commander Xiang said in an interview with this station that the central bank's interest rate cuts will not have the effect of boosting the economy on the consumer market, because people's spending power mainly comes from the gains from economic growth: "Obviously, the purchasing power of Chinese people is not as good as before. , it seems that the Chinese government is now more hopeful about stimulating the surrounding capital markets, including the Hong Kong stock market releasing some positive signals to attract the return of foreign capital, and seems to be more keen on short-term speculation. Although the stock market has experienced an Indian summer after Pan Gongsheng's press conference, it does not mean that it will follow. The stock market rally will continue over the next few trading days."
Pan Gongsheng, governor of the People's Bank of China, said at a press conference that the central bank and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority have decided to launch six measures. Among them, they will further open up foreign investors to participate in domestic bond repurchase business and support the participation of all foreign institutions that have entered the inter-bank bond market. Bond repurchases, including the Bond Connect channel. On Thursday, the Hong Kong stock market opened above 16,000 points, and the Shanghai Composite Index rose 58 points to 2,878 points.