Behind India’s protests is a crisis in the graduate-jobs market

Between 2004 and 2023, India added roughly 5 million graduates to the workforce annually, but employment rose by only about 2.8 million per year, according to Azim Premji University research.

The leak of a public exam paper for graduates led to widespread protests, and after weeks of resistance, Prime Minister Narendra Modi accepted the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on July 25.

Last year, 2.2 million students sat for medical school entrance exams competing for only 126,600 places, and 2.8 million applied for about 15,000 low-level government positions.

Since 2016, there have been at least 80 exam leaks involving more than 20 million students, according to data analyst Sujay Nadkarni.

Only 55% of India's graduates are employable, and fewer than 7% of unemployed graduates find permanent salaried work within a year.