"Growth without decent jobs" is the defining labour-market challenge of the 2020s. Examine with reference to recent ILO findings and their implications for India.

The ILO's Employment and Social Trends 2026 finds that "global job quality stagnates despite resilient growth" [1]. The challenge of the 2020s is therefore less a shortage of jobs than a shortage of decent jobs: work that is productive, secure and socially protected.

ILO findings: stable headline numbers, stagnant job quality

• Global unemployment is flat at 4.9% (186 million) for 2026, yet nearly 300 million workers earn under $3 a day [1].
• Informality keeps rising and is set to reach 2.1 billion workers in 2026 [1].
• A slow shift towards higher-value sectors holds back productivity and wages [1].
• Youth unemployment rose to 12.4% in 2025, and about 20% of youth (257 million) are NEET [2].
• 6.1% of jobs held by 15–29-year-olds are highly exposed to AI [2].

Implications for India

• Headline vs quality: youth (15–29) unemployment fell to 10.2% in 2023-24 [3], but nearly 90% of workers are informally employed [4].
• Distress self-employment: self-employment rose to 55.8% in 2022, while regular salaried work fell to 21.5% [4].
• Educated unemployment: graduate unemployment was 29.1%, roughly nine times that of illiterate youth [4]. This wastes public spending on education and erodes the demographic dividend.
• Technology risk: routine back-office and IT-enabled services work, a traditional entry point for Indian graduates, is the kind of work most exposed to AI [2].
• Gender gap: women worldwide are 24% less likely than men to be in the labour force [1]. India's low female participation makes this loss larger.

Way forward

• Direct growth towards labour-intensive sectors such as agro-processing, textiles, tourism and the care economy.
• Judge Skill India by how many trainees get formal jobs, not by how many certificates it issues. Expand apprenticeships.
• Use the Code on Social Security, 2020 to bring gig and platform workers under social protection. Build on gains in formalisation such as the 1.3 crore net EPFO subscribers added in 2023-24 [3].
• Track informality and NEET alongside the PLFS unemployment rate.

Growth that raises output but not job quality cannot deliver India's demographic dividend. Combining labour-intensive growth with skills, social protection and better labour data can turn stable employment into decent employment. That would advance SDG 8 and the Article 43 promise of a living wage and a decent standard of life.