Covid-19’s Impact: Graduate Unemployment is on the Upsurge.
Graduate hiring has been disrupted by the Covid 19 crisis.
One of the worst job market scenarios is that of recent grads struggling to find a job. According to the India Skills Report 2021, graduating students would be less employable in 2021 than they were in 2020. The Covid-19 problem has resulted in a massive drop in economic activity, which has a devastating impact on graduates. Grads who holds degrees in Finance, communications, Marketing, and engineering, and other professions are still struggling to find decent-paying work in their respective fields, which adversely impacts their student loan payments. When job prospects are uncertain, young people with higher levels of education are more likely to feel deceived and disappointed under conditions of economic stagnation. According to The Center for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), the pandemic has led to a major impact on the job market, especially for young people. To track family incomes, the center conducts one of the world’s largest periodic surveys. According to the most recent data, urban 20 to 24-year-olds have one of the highest rates of unemployment in India, with 37.9% now unemployed. The job hunt was the problem even before the covid-19 but in the year 2020–2021, the unemployment rates have drastically increased. India’s GDP shrank by 23.9 percent from April to June last year, as coronavirus outbreaks shut down major industries, many people lost their jobs. Because there is no rise in employment recruitment, the situation has gotten worse in the second and third waves. As the impact of the coronavirus continues to wreak havoc on practically every sector, the economy has slowed and shows no signs of improving.
Sakshi Kumar, 21, completed her journalism and mass media degree from Mumbai, is still been struggling to find a job for over a year now. “I have applied for over 100 places but have interviewed with quite a few. Opportunities have drastically decreased for the fresher graduates. This pandemic has also caused financial stress. There is an uncertainty of whether I will get a job in media.”
Pratiksha Dalvi, 22, a graduate in Accessory Design from NIFT said. “Covid and the lockdown was a major setback for college and graduating at such times with work from home unpaid internship wasn’t an ideal experience on resumes. Being in a field with already limited scope and enormous competition, covid has brought down the market to a large extent and left with few choices of accepting unworthy and low paid jobs or no jobs at all. Most of the job applications go unanswered.”
Because of the pandemic condition, there are no government recruitments in India, and fresh graduates are under pressure to fear losing employment offers from corporate sectors. Reduced hiring may be even more evident in SMEs, where approximately 34% of the graduate population normally works. There is a risk that the Covid-19 generation of graduates will have nowhere to go unless this slump is addressed.
Conclusion: The government must acknowledge that this is a critical issue that requires prompt attention. A youth employment task force should be established to deal with any issues that arise in the next months and years. A task force like this could keep an eye on the problem and look at possible policy solutions. Career assistance should also be comprehensive in scope, such as assisting students with health issues and managing times of unemployment while retaining their employability, as well as helping them to get jobs.
