Hundred Million Jobs mission unveiled to tackle India’s employment challenge
Small and micro enterprises currently account for around 30 per cent of India’s gross domestic product and employ a large share of the workforce.
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A group of senior industry leaders has launched the Hundred Million Jobs mission, a national initiative aimed at creating 100 million jobs in India over the next decade, amid growing concern over weak employment growth despite the country’s rapidly expanding economy.
The initiative was announced on Monday by Harish Mehta, co-founder of technology industry body Nasscom, AJ Patel, founder of the global entrepreneurship network TiE, and K Yatish Rajawat, founder of the Centre for Innovation in Public Policy, Asianet Newsable reported.
India adds an estimated 12 million people to its working-age population every year. To effectively leverage its demographic advantage, the country needs to create around 8 to 9 million jobs annually. However, employment growth has lagged, particularly as traditional job-generating sectors such as manufacturing struggle to scale, while automation and artificial intelligence continue to reduce entry-level opportunities.
The Hundred Million Jobs mission seeks to bridge this gap by focusing on entrepreneurship, reskilling initiatives and the expansion of micro, small and medium enterprises. Mehta said the initiative aims to strengthen entrepreneurs and MSMEs, encouraging them to function as job creators rather than job seekers.
Small and micro enterprises currently account for around 30 per cent of India’s gross domestic product and employ a large share of the workforce. Patel said meaningful job creation would require scaling these businesses beyond major urban centres, adding that wider geographic dispersion is essential to sustain employment growth of nearly 9 million jobs a year.
Rajawat described employment generation as a systems challenge, stating that lasting progress would require a shift in mindset across government, industry and civil society, Asianet Newsable reported.
The mission has received backing from several prominent figures in industry and public policy. Infosys founder N.R. Narayana Murthy, former NITI Aayog vice-chairman Rajiv Kumar, former McKinsey senior partner Rajat Gupta and Fractal co-founder Srikanth Velamakanni are among those who have signed the initiative’s charter.
Structured as a non-profit effort in collaboration with the Centre for Innovation in Public Policy, the Hundred Million Jobs mission plans to work closely with policymakers, entrepreneurs and educators to convert its employment targets into sustained outcomes on the ground.
