India's skills gap debate is shifting from blaming youth to fixing the system. With 370 million young people, the focus is now on better education-to-employment pathways, employer involvement, and scalable training models to unlock India's workforce potential.

The report draws on field research conducted among stakeholders of PRADAN’s Youth Employment Program (EEMPOWER), including workers, families, community leaders, and officials.

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.

What does it truly take for a rural young woman in India to access and sustain formal work? This report by JustJobs Network and PRADAN traces women's journeys from aspiration to employment, uncovering the social norms, family negotiations, and institutional gaps that shape their path beyond just skills training — and what governments, training partners, and employers must do differently.

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.

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.

As digital platforms reshape work across Asia and the Pacific, new opportunities for income and flexibility are emerging — but not equally for all workers. Rising task-based work raises urgent questions about governance and the extension of labour and social protections. This report examines emerging regulatory approaches and pathways to decent work in an increasingly digital world, and comes at a critical moment as the ILO prepares a new Convention and Recommendation on platform work to be discussed at the International Labour Conference in June 2026.

JustJobs Network’s new research, supported by JPMorganChase, outlines pathways for sustainable youth employment in India.

Urban women’s participation in India’s labour market remains limited despite rising overall female labour force participation. This article examines whether platform work can enable women’s economic empowerment. It finds that platforms often reproduce inequalities through unpaid care burdens, unsafe mobility, and weak protections. Without improved infrastructure, childcare, safety, and labour protections, it risks becoming digitised informality rather than a pathway to mobility.

This report identifies gaps in the education-to-employment pipeline for youth. Drawing on stakeholder insights across sectors and practical experience from the ground on what works, it highlights key misalignments and offers actionable recommendations to strengthen these transitions.