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.

Digital platforms are rapidly transforming work across Asia and the Pacific, offering flexible income opportunities while expanding service-led economic growth. However, the rise of gig and platform work also raises concerns about worker protections, income stability and the need for updated labour regulations.

India's welfare state is held together by over five million women, namely the ASHA workers, Anganwadi workers, and mid-day meal workers & helpers, who deliver essential public services daily, yet remain classified as 'volunteers', denied fair wages, formal contracts, and basic protections. This is no accident: with women already spending nearly twice as much time on caregiving as men, the state has long relied on deeply entrenched gender norms to keep care work cheap and informal. In this piece Renjini Rajagopalan makes the case for why it's time to move beyond the honorary label and recognise care work for what it truly is: work.

The DDU-GKY scheDespite schemes like DDU-GKY, formal skilling remains limited for rural youth, with only about 3.9 % accessing structured training compared with 7.1 % in urban areas. Persistent barriers such as low awareness, uneven outreach, mobility constraints, and social norms, particularly affect women’s participation. JJN’s research highlights that addressing these structural and social challenges is crucial to making skill training inclusive and effective for rural youth.me was designed to bridge skilling and formal jobs for rural youth. However, low awareness, distant placements, social factors, and curriculum gaps hinder uptake.

The State of Finance in India- Report 2024–25 highlights the growing vulnerabilities of India’s gig and platform workers. In her chapter, Sabina Dewan examines how digital platforms are reshaping labour relations and protections, underscores critical policy gaps and calls for a more equitable framework for platform-based work.

Exploring the critical role of structured career guidance in bridging India’s systemic gap between education and employment, while aligning aspirations with market realities to ensure successful employment transitions.

Sabina Dewan, Founder & Executive Director, JustJobs Network, was featured in BW Businessworld's article, "Why Inclusive Skilling And AI Matter For India's Workforce Future", following her participation in the 7th Edition of the BW Emerging Businesses Summit & Awards.

JustJobs Network has been cited by Meghalaya Monitor, with the article noting that JJN's analysis converges with the ILO (International Labour Organization) and India's own gig-economy policy discussions on a key idea: social protection must become a universal floor linked to citizenship or residency, with contributions from workers, firms and the state, and with portability across jobs, sectors and states.