Elite mindset is not going to solve jobs issue

Pundits are going to be busy analysing the messages from this election for a while, but it is already apparent that economic distress and lack of jobs are critical issues. Young India wants jobs more than temples.

India has had a brewing jobs crisis for at least 15 years.  It is a wicked problem that manifests in all sorts of statistics, particularly our low workforce participation rate (49% overall). The data also shows that the lack of good work particularly hits young people (80% of the unemployed are below 30), women, and graduates. The last is particularly shocking.  For most of us, a good education was the passport out of poverty into the middle or affluent class. Now, a young person with a college degree is NINE times as likely to be unemployed as her illiterate counterpart, according to an ILO report. This indicates both the quality of degrees as well as the low-end nature of work that is available. What has changed recently is that this is no longer a lower-middle class problem. This year, 35% of all IIT graduates and nearly 20% of IIM graduates are still looking for jobs. The problem now affects elites too, and that may be good news; it can no longer be ignored or wished away. (Incidentally, this appears to be a global issue affecting US computer science and Harvard Business School grads as well)

One reason why we have such a massive problem with good jobs is because our economic thinking is still very elitist.  Affluent India, our media, and policymakers are obsessed with catching up with the US and China in GDP terms without care for other indicators of broad-based well-being. We are captivated by big companies that can compete globally like the Tata group, Reliance or Infosys. In entrepreneurship, we celebrate unicorns, not the millions of mundane small businesses that create 60% of all employment. To incentivise manufacturing, we dream up (production-linked incentive) PLI schemes to bring iPhone assembly or semiconductor packaging rather than seek grubby labour-intensive companies that make apparel, toys, shoes or all sorts of household products and hardware.

Nobel-winning economist Edmund Phelps, who examined the economic rise of England, then America and later China (in a book titled ‘Mass Flourishing: How Grassroots Innovation Created Jobs, Challenge, and Change’), points out that in these countries, prosperity was defined by a broad sense of ‘flourishing’. This flourishing included meaningful work, self-expression, and personal growth for a large portion of the population. Phelps believes that the source of this flourishing was a change in societal values that fuelled widespread innovation and entrepreneurship at the grassroots level, meaning many people, not just a few famous ones, were coming up with new ideas and businesses.  Such widespread tinkering and   entrepreneurship led to a period of economic and personal prosperity that he calls ‘mass flourishing’.

Lessons from chess

India has witnessed such a flourishing of sports. Our success, first in cricket and more recently in chess, is because these sports have become dramatically more inclusive, thereby drawing in massive talent. Chess is growing at the grassroots across the country, and is now included in the school curriculum in Tamil Nadu and Gujarat. Chess clubs and tournaments are pervasive, creating a movement just like in cricket. This democratisation has made a fast-growing funnel for talent, with at least a million people playing local tournaments across the country, including Uber and auto drivers and construction workers who sign up for free entry tournaments. Prize money and sponsorships, though still a trickle, are growing fast with the sport’s success. As a result, India has 73 grandmasters now, up from 20 in 2007, and seven players ranked among the top 100 in the world. Our success in chess has great parallels with mass entrepreneurship. For India to prosper and reach its potential, we cannot have just a handful of large firms and a few thousand tech startups. We need a grassroots movement of millions of young people who want to start and build their businesses rather than seek elusive good jobs. These are not just gig workers or necessity entrepreneurs who are forced to start small businesses such as tea shops or grocery stores out of compulsion, but entrepreneurs who are drawn to an opportunity and are growth-oriented.

Schooled in entrepreneurship

For this, not only must entrepreneurship be a mandatory part of all curricula, we also need thousands of venture clubs, incubators and accelerators in schools, colleges, ITIs and districts. Competitions like Shark Tank are highly effective in inspiring young entrepreneurs. The key is to build a pyramid of competitions that build a huge funnel of entrepreneurial talent that can see opportunity in every problem and build a business out of solving it.

India’s innovation and economic potential cannot be unlocked by a small elite. Imagine instead a future where every small town and city feels like Bengaluru, buzzing with innovation, brimming with opportunity, and alive with the entrepreneurial spirit of our young people.

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