Have Indians stopped looking for jobs?
Top Jobs + Journalism across globe + Job Crisis + Warmest April
Hello, hope you are having a great Sunday. This week we reflect on the state of journalism in India and across the world. Along with, the status of the job market in India.
Top Jobs of the Week
Public Policy Associate, Meta
Location- Gurugram, To apply click here.
Lead, Centre for Reimagining Innovation and Science Practice
Location- New Delhi, To apply click here.
Journalism under Digital Siege
This World Press Freedom Day, Press Freedom Index was published by a Paris-based organization, Reporters Without Borders. The organization assessed the state of journalism across countries and brought to light the impact of globalized and unregulated online information.
How did the countries perform?
Norway emerged as the top performer while North Korea stayed as the worst-performing country. Meanwhile, India has plummeted to the 150th position which was at the 142nd position in 2021.
In the recent evaluation, the methodology was updated as 5 new indicators were added- political context, legal framework, economic context, sociocultural context, and safety.
The report speculates the reasons for India's fall-
Media landscape- The Media industry in India has more than 100,000 newspapers and 380 TV news channels. However, most media outlets hide their tendencies toward the concentration of ownership.
Ownership concentration is a significant internal governance mechanism in which owners can control and influence the management of the firm to protect their interests.
Advertising- Most media outlets largely depend on advertising contracts with local and regional governments. Sometimes, the central government sees this as an opportunity to impose its narrative and spends more than 130 billion rupees a year on ads in print and online media alone.
Sociocultural Factors- Even though the number of women in media has more than doubled in two decades, they constitute only 28.6 % of the media workforce in Asia and the Pacific.
Safety- Asia has proved to be the most dangerous continent for journalists as a total of 109 journalists have been killed in the last five years. The RSF organization said that 46 journalists were killed in 2021, of which four died in India. Journalists are exposed to all kinds of physical violence including violence by the police and political activists.
Response of the Indian journalists-
Three Indian journalists' organization’s the Indian Women's Press Corps, Press Club of India, and Press Association said in a joint statement,
While the job insecurities have grown so have the attacks on press freedoms seen an exponential rise. India does not fare too well in this regard, ranking 150 out of 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index compiled by RSF. Journalists have been incarcerated under draconian laws for flimsy reasons and on some occasions faced threats to their lives as well from self-styled custodians of law in the social media space. Noting that freedom of the press is integral to the functioning of a vibrant democracy, the media has to come together to reclaim its role in the realization of this objective.
(Sources: Quint, Telegraph India, Hindustan Times, Scroll)
Why the Indian youth is not looking for jobs?
The young people in India have stopped looking for jobs. The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy in its recent data revealed that unemployment in India has risen to 7.83 percent in April’22.
Reasons contributing to the situation-
Pandemic as a contributing factor- As of December 2021, the CMIE estimated that 1-in-5 college graduates were unemployed. Since 2020, the pandemic has severely hit India's job market, and the effects remain to be seen to date.
Lack of good quality jobs- As per the CMIE, Indian workers are tired of finding suitable jobs as per their skills in the labor market. This has pushed millions of workers out of the labor force. Many organizations reported that millions of Indians, especially women have quit their search for jobs because of the dearth of opportunities in the past five years. The overall labor force participation rate dropped from 46 percent to 40 percent.
The shift from formal to informal sector- The lack of jobs in the formal sector is pushing people into the informal sector. The unemployment rate in urban areas increased to 9.22% in April and it was recorded at 7.18 % in the same month.
No funds for MGNREGA- While unemployment is rising, the government is also cutting the funds under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). The government has cut the allocation for MNREGA by 25 % in the 2022-23 budget. Given this, the registered workers are not coming to work which is leading to dodgy registration numbers.
(Sources: Scroll, Print, Bloomberg, Quint, Deccan herald)
Warmest April in 122 years for India
Severe heat conditions have been consistently reported over large parts of India since the beginning of the Spring. Tap on the button to find out the reasons and the impact for the same.
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