The country has been facing rising unemployment for the last few years now. Gujarat is no exception. According to the state’s Employment Exchange Department records, there are four lakh unemployed people registered as on March 2021. Of them, 3,85,506 are literate and just five percent are semi-skilled. If one goes by the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee job cards data, 30 lakh job cards have been issued, of which 15 lakh are active job card holders.
The unemployment issue has been a major point of debate among political parties in the upcoming Assembly elections. But there is hardly any resolution in sight. For youngsters, it is a daily battle with frustration. After years of hard work when they finally graduate, they hope to land a good job to support their family.
But the lack of employment avenues is a significant hurdle. Recently, some 17 lakh job aspirants applied for 3,400 vacant posts of Talati (village panchayat executive head).
The situation is no different for another youth from Nani Zaduli village in Naswadi Taluka of Vadodara district. Nonetheless, his story is inspiring. A graduate, he was forced to fend for himself and come up with other options when the BA degree failed to secure him a job.
Coming from an economically weak background, the young man did not have many options to fall back on when he failed to get a job after repeated attempts. But he knew he had to do something to support his family. He learnt hair-cutting and decided to set up a makeshift shop.
Since funding was a hurdle; he could not secure a proper place to ply his trade. Rather than giving up on his dreams of financial independence, he turned to a makeshift arrangement. He came across a public toilet that had been shut for use for the last two years.
Encouraged, he decided to operate his salon from the premises. Today he is not only running his shop successfully and supporting his family, but also saving up enough to set up a proper salon someday.
