Jammu- Kashmir faces 6.1 percent unemployment; over 3.7 lakh youths hit job market in 2023-24

Jammu: The Omar Abdullah administration announced on Thursday that the unemployment rate in Jammu and Kashmir stood at 6.1 per cent for persons aged 15 years and older in 2023-24, according to the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI).In response to a query by the National Conference (NC) MLA, Tanvir Sadiq, the government mentioned that 3,70,811 jobless youths had registered on the employment portal voluntarily up to the end of January 2025.

Government has launched various schemes

The government has launched various schemes of self-employment under schemes such as Mumkin, Tejaswani, Mission Youth, PMEGP, and REGP. These initiatives have created about 9.58 lakh opportunities of self-employment since 2021. In the fiscal year 2024-25, 1.36 lakh opportunities have been created. Furthermore, under the MGNREGA scheme, the government has created 3.01 crore person-days of work involving 8.07 lakh households," said the government.

Employee population ratio

To boost entrepreneurship and skill development, the government has kicked off Mission YUVA, this is an ambitious program and is aimed at setting up 1.35 lakh units for entrepreneurship and generating employment for 4.5 lakh youth in Jammu and Kashmir. The department also fosters skill development through specialized training schemes aimed at increasing self-employment abilities. Job fairs are also organized periodically to fill the gap between employers and job aspirants, promoting private sector employment," the government added. Since there are no industries, the majority of the youths migrate out of the union territory to work abroad .The ones who prefer to work in J&K have to apply for government jobs. The government sector in the UT already has a relatively higher employee population ratio among states in the nation