MBA in India earn less than $2K a year

India’s largest young workforce is considered to be one of the biggest advantages for the Indian economy. It is expected that even as the workforces in developed countries are ageing, India will continue to see millions of workers entering the workforce every year. However, given the structural factors transforming the global economy, this has led to an employment disaster in India. It is estimated that more than a million workers enter India’s workforce every month, however the Indian economy fails to create even a million new job positions in a single year. Even the quality of the workforce is not high, given that India’s public school system is a mess. The industrial sector employs just 12% of the workforce and even with the “Make in India” and other pro-manufacturing policies, it seems difficult that India will be able to create the massive number of employment opportunities. Also new technological developments such as 3-D printing, automation and robotics have considerably reduced the number of employees required per unit of production.

India’s archaic labor laws and red tape has also ensured that Indian entrepreneurs prefer to employ capital intensive means of production, rather than employee intensive means. Most of India’s employees work in small and medium enterprises without job security and any formal contracts in place. The number of people in the formal workforce are quite small, as compared to the informal workforce. This trend is only getting accentuated leading to the creation of a vast underpaid, underemployed army of workers. This is also increasing inequality between the have and have-nots.  On one hand you have Mukesh Ambani who has builit a multi-billion dollar home in the middle of India’s financial capital of Mumbai, while you have more than 70% of Indians surviving on less than $2 of earnings a day.

Even education is not a panacea for poverty as employment opportunities remain few and far between. India’s industry association Assocham has estimated that the vast majority of MBA graduates make less than $2,000 a year. This is a less than what a chauffeur earns in Tier 1 cities. Besides poor education quality, these graduates suffer from mind boggling competition. Government jobs attract millions of applications, as it is seen as a sure shot way of achieving respectability and life security in India’s increasingly vulnerable milieu. There are 500,000 MBA seats a year, which is churning out low quality mediocre work force. Engineering is even worse with 80% engineers being considered totally unfit for jobs, with 97% unable to even speak English. There are more than 1,500,000 engineers coming out of Indian colleges every year.

Though the new government has taken a number of steps such as “Skill India” etc. to train these workers, the sheer size of this employment problem means that jobs will remain scarce with few opportunities.  It is a good situation for employers and capital owners while a sad, depressing and hopeless situation for India’s youth. The recent Jat and Patel agitations are an offshoot of this painful situation.