- Research
Research
Cutting edge reports, briefs and factsheets delivering the latest evidence on labor markets.
- Reports
- Briefs
- Factsheets
Featured Work
Factsheet
- Data & Insights
Data & Insights
Featuring topical and informative data and graphs from our blogs and other Institute publications.
- Perspectives
- Explainers
- Data Stories
- Podcasts
Featured
Perspective
- Stories
Stories
Human interest stories that capture on ground voices from the World of Work.
- Photo Essays
- Films
Featured
Film
- Events
- Issues
- Initiatives
How India’s Hiring Model is Creating its Own Skills Shortage
22 September 2026
ABOUT THIS Perspective
India is investing heavily in skilling. But are employers investing enough in the people they say they cannot find? In her latest piece published in Outlook India, JJN researcher Isha Gupta argues that employers need to become active participants in shaping skills, designing apprenticeships and creating clearer pathways from training to stable employment.
Read the full piece here.
You may also be interested in
Perspective
Measuring India’s Gig Worker Laws Against the ILO’s New Platform Work Convention
How does India’s emerging legal framework for gig and platform workers measure up to new global labour standards? In her latest piece for Tech Law Forum, JustJobs Network’s Kaushiki Sanyal examines India’s evolving approach to platform work in light of the ILO’s new Convention on Decent Work in the Platform Economy. She examines what the Convention means for gig workers and where India’s current framework stands on minimum wages, social security, occupational safety, algorithmic transparency, protection against deactivation, and collective rights.
Perspective
Can Aspiration Meet Reality? What Indian Youth Want
India’s young population has big aspirations, but limited good jobs, skills gaps and informal employment threaten its demographic dividend. Sabina Dewan examines what Indian youth want—and what reality offers.
Perspective
Borrowed Land, Boiling Fields: Madanpur Khadar’s Migrant Farmers
For migrant farmers cultivating informally rented land in Delhi's Madanpur Khadar, rising temperatures raise the cost of survival. With work depending on access to water, secure land tenure, and access to markets, extreme heat exacerbates these conditions, making long hours of work more difficult and livelihoods more uncertain. This fieldwork account explores how heat is experienced by farmers who fall outside conventional employer-employee relationships, and why heat adaptation must look beyond exposure alone to the wider conditions that shape their ability to work and survive
Perspective
Platform Work Is Testing India’s Welfare Board Model
India’s platform economy is exposing a deeper question about social security: can a welfare system built around occupations protect workers whose jobs, platforms and locations keep changing? JustJobs Network’s Kaushiki Sanyal explores this question in her latest piece for The Policy Edge, examining why India’s welfare-board model is being tested and what a more portable, worker-centred social protection system could look like.
Perspective
Why India’s youth compete fiercely for government jobs
Recent protests over a leaked examination paper have also brought renewed attention to India's employment challenge. In this piece, Shipra Nigam, Research Director at JustJobs Network, writing for The Hindu, argues that the intense competition for government jobs is not simply about a preference for public sector employment. It reflects a deeper issue: while educational attainment has expanded significantly, the economy has not generated enough secure, productive, and dignified jobs for young people.
Perspective
Near 50% seats in ITIs stay vacant: India’s skill crisis is hidden in plain sight
India's ITI system faces a crisis of relevance, with half its seats lying vacant despite growing demand for skills. This article examines how outdated courses, gender segregation and weak alignment with labour market needs are undermining vocational education, and argues for reforms that make ITIs more inclusive and responsive to today's economy.
Perspective
ITI reform must start with trainers, not showpieces
India's vocational training system has expanded rapidly, but weak ITIs continue to undermine skill development. This article examines the gaps in training quality, industry linkages and employment outcomes, and outlines the reforms needed to make ITIs a credible pathway to skilled jobs.
Perspective
On the Roadside: Heat, Informality, and the Unprotected Vendors in Bhubaneswar
In Bhubaneswar's scorching summers, Mamata, a vegetable vendor, restructures her entire day around the heat - working longer hours both at her cart and at home and absorbing the income loss that follows. Her story reveals what's missing from how we talk about informal work and heat: the type of occupation matters. The worksite, the task, and the stability of employment all shape how vulnerable a worker really is - and current heat action plans fail to capture this nuance.
Perspective
Beyond jobs: What it takes to keep young, rural women in formal employment
While more young rural women are entering the workforce through skilling programmes, staying in formal employment remains a challenge. Drawing on research by JustJobs Network and PRADAN, this article explores the social, familial, and workplace barriers that shape women’s employment journeys and argues that skills alone are not enough without sustained support, safe migration pathways, and better job quality.
Perspective
India’s two youths: Why gap between unemployed graduates and credit score chasers matters
In this article by The Indian Express, India’s young consumers are shown powering demand, tracking credit scores and fuelling a surge in borrowing, even as millions of graduates remain locked out of stable jobs. This widening disconnect, as research from JustJobs Network suggests, raises larger questions about whether the country’s demographic advantage can translate into durable economic gains.
Perspective
Enhancing State capacity to leverage Gender Budget for women’s welfare
India’s Gender Budget has grown steadily, yet implementation challenges persist. Drawing on fieldwork in Odisha, JJN’s researcher Kripa Krishna examines in her piece for Ideas for India on how weak local capacity, limited accountability, and gaps in last-mile delivery undermine welfare outcomes. It argues that without strengthening public systems and evaluating existing schemes, increased allocations risk falling short of translating into meaningful improvements in women’s economic empowerment.
Perspective
Sanitation, Not Leave, Limits Women’s Work
A workday shouldn’t hinge on finding a usable toilet, yet for many women in India, it does. In her article for The Policy Edge, Kaushiki Sanyal, Fellow, JustJobs Network, argues that the focus on menstrual leave in India's policy debates misses a more immediate and pervasive constraint: the absence of functional sanitation. She contends that without addressing this everyday barrier, efforts to improve women’s workforce participation will remain incomplete.