The other side of India's jobs story

The bigger problem is the nature of employment, rather than unemployment, and the realistic solution could be fostering farm-related enterprises

The official figures say unemployment is less than 3 per cent. The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, using a different definition, puts it closer to 7 per cent. These may be correct in a technical sense, but are the wrong numbers to focus on.

Because only about 58 per cent of our population in the working age group of a billion people, actually works. This is up from 52 per cent, but a lot of the increase is of women doing unpaid work, or people falling back on farming. In any case, it was around 65 per cent in the past,