Call to create adequate jobs in Rajasthan, as youth eager to work

The youth in Rajasthan, who want to work, are not finding enough employment opportunities. The share of those between 15 and 29 years of age working or looking for work has risen sharply, from 38% in 2017-18 to 51% in 2025, says a report on the state of young workers in Rajasthan.

Unemployment among graduates and above in Rajasthan stands at 33%. Most of the extra work is created in the agriculture sector, in which the young workers’ share increased from 39.3% to 47.0% during the last seven years, while it fell in almost all other States.

With these findings, the ‘Rajasthan Handbook of Youth Opportunity’, launched on Tuesday (September 8, 2026), called for turning the rising participation in work and education into better employment and earnings in the State. It said as many as 39 out of every 100 young workers in Rajasthan were “unpaid family workers”, rising to 61 among young women.

The handbook was released by the Future of India Foundation and Udaipur-based Seva Mandir in the presence of a battery of academicians, development practitioners and civil society members. It presented an overview of youth opportunity in Rajasthan alongside detailed scorecards for each of the 41 districts.

While identifying areas where focused policy and local action could make a difference, the report drew on a district-level platform, YouthPOWER, bringing together 180 indicators from 27 government databases and presenting a comparable score across five parameters of participation, opportunity, work, education and readiness/skilling.

Future of India Foundation’s Executive Director Ruchi Gupta said the young women accounted for roughly three-quarters of the increase in youth labour-force participation. However, the share of young workers in regular salaried employment fell from 24.9% to 22.5%. About 77% of working young women are in agriculture and 61% are unpaid family workers.

Ms. Gupta said unemployment was rising with education in the State, as depicted by 33% joblessness among young graduates and above, compared with 3% among those educated up to secondary level. Among the graduates, the rate is 44% for young women and 26% for young men.

District scores range from 55.9 in Jaipur to 41.6 in Dungarpur. Jaipur, Jhunjhunu and Udaipur lead the rankings, while Baran, Pratapgarh and Dungarpur are at the lower end. Rajasthan’s overall YouthPOWER score is 45.7, according to the report.

The handbook called for a State employment policy which tracks job creation, regular employment, social security coverage and wage growth. It also recommended helping small enterprises grow and employ more people, improving earnings and conditions in the existing occupations, aligning skilling with local demand, and expanding apprenticeships and paid opportunities for young women.

Ms. Gupta said the Lok Sabha members from Rajasthan, who head the District Development Coordination and Monitoring Committees, must use their political capital and institutional position to ensure policy formulation for improving the youth outcomes. “The existing employment exchanges should be developed as district youth resource centres, providing a single point of access to mentoring, jobs, training, apprenticeships and enterprise support,” she said.

Addressing the gathering, Sunny Sebastian, former Vice-Chancellor, Haridev Joshi University of Journalism and Mass Communication, said the hopes and aspirations of the youth should not be ignored when 65% of the country’s population was under 35.

Mr. Sebastian, who was earlier Deputy Editor with The Hindu, said the handbook would serve as a benchmark for future studies and policymaking.

Others who spoke at the launch ceremony included Janat Shah, founding Director, Indian Institute of Management, Udaipur; Ronak Shah, chief executive officer, Seva Mandir; Krishnavtar Sharma, co-founder, Aajeevika Bureau; Hriday Kant Dewan of Setu Initiatives; and Shrinivas Rao of Azad Foundation.