For the new Government coming in, unemployment is one of the key areas they need to work on.
In 2016, youth comprised 30% of the population in the state, higher than the national average of 27%, with 682,000 youth aged 15-29 years, state data showed. This puts significant pressure on employment demands in the largely agrarian state. The agricultural sector, despite employing over 60% of the state’s workforce, contributes to less than 30% of the state’s gross domestic product (GSDP), according to the state’s economic survey 2016.
The state has an unemployment rate of 8.9%, nearly twice the national average (4.8%), according to the ministry of labour’s annual Employment-Unemployment Survey, 2015-16 report. With elasticity of employment in agriculture pegged at -0.43% in the Nagaland 2030 vision document, the state needs to focus on developing employment opportunities in the secondary and tertiary sectors which comprise 15% and 54.5% of the GSDP, respectively.
Currently, in the absence of private investment, a significant chunk (15%) of the tertiary sector, which adds the most to the GSDP, is employed in public administration. Job security, as the cut-off age for the Nagaland Public Service Commission in Nagaland is 35 years, has emerged as a key issue in the state elections.
To this end, raising private investment into Nagaland will require a concerted effort to improve the state’s infrastructure, which may only be possible if peaceful relations in the state grow. This is also necessary to maintain the Nagaland’s steady rise of visiting tourists which has nearly tripled from 2007 (936) to 2017 (2,759), as the 2016 economic survey shows.
Source: India Economic Survey 2016-17; *2014-15.