Nearly 25% of Telangana’s graduates are jobless

HYDERABAD: As the election day nears for the two Graduate MLC constituencies, unemployment among the educated has become a hot topic for the candidates in the fray. Express took a look at the unemployment data by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). According to the CMIE’s recent State-wise unemployment data for September-December 2020, the unemployment rate among the graduate population in Telangana was just 21.88 per cent. This is marginally more than the national average of 21.19 per cent in the same parameter. Also, there are around 3.88 lakh graduates in the State, who are ‘unemployed, willing to work and active job seekers’. 

Telangana has the eighth highest unemployment rate among graduates in the country, but only three large States have less than 10 per cent unemployment among graduates — Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Odisha.
The four-month periodic CMIE reports available from January-April, 2016 shows that the unemployment rate among the graduate population of Telangana has mostly hovered between 18 per cent and 27 per cent. Only during the election year of 2018, it remained low.

A comparison of the unemployment rate in September-December shows that it was 20 per cent or above in 2016, 2017, 2019 and 2020. In 2018, it was as low as 2.76 per cent.Also, there is a stark difference between the unemployment rate among graduates and that among the less educated or the illiterate. According to the September-December 2020 CMIE report, the overall unemployment rate in Telangana was just 3.68 per cent and was less than 1.5 per cent among those with educational qualification between Classes V and XII. Among the illiterate, it was 6.72 per cent.

Former OU professor and social activist K Purushotham Reddy blamed the sub-standard quality of education, decades of course structure and poor state of affairs of higher educational institutions for the high unemployment rate among graduates.“This phenomenon is there in other States as well. In Telangana, almost every home in the rural areas has a graduate but either they are unemployed or underemployed. There is a serious mismatch between what skills the country requires to tackle with the various issues in reaching the Sustainable Development Goals and the skills available among the graduates,” he said. 

Worrying trend  

Express takes a look at the CMIE’s recent State-wise unemployment data for September-December 2020

21.88% Unemployment rate among the graduate population in TS 

National average is 21.19% 
The unemployment rate in TS has mostly hovered between 18% and 27% 

Stark difference between the unemployment rate among graduates and the less educated/illiterate

3.68% Overall unemployment rate in TS