Education and Workforce Development:
India needs to improve the depth and quality of its education system to create an employable workforce.
Nurturing effective institutions, including an efficient judiciary, is essential for supporting development.
Reforms in land and labor markets are necessary to help India achieve its goal of becoming a developed country.
Women’s Labour Force Participation:
Gita Gopinath emphasized that no country can achieve high-income status without increasing women’s labor force participation, which is currently around 35% in India.
Ensuring women’s safety is critical to improving participation rates.
Trade and Tariffs:
India’s import tariff rates are higher than those of its peer economies.
Being open to trade is important, and lowering tariffs is necessary for India to play a significant role on the global stage and in supply chains.
Economic and Employment Growth:
India’s GDP growth averaged 6.6% from 2010 to the pandemic, but employment growth was under 2% during this period.
India needs to create between 60 million and 148 million additional jobs by 2030.
Policies should encourage firms to hire workers, and labor reforms should be implemented through state incentives.
Skill Mismatch and Education:
There is a longstanding skill mismatch in India’s workforce, requiring urgent investments in education.
Revamping education to improve quality and duration is necessary to develop a sufficiently skilled workforce.
Corporate investment needs to rise, as it is not performing as well as expected for an economy growing at 7%.
Preparedness for AI and Automation:
India is at an intermediate level of preparedness for adapting to AI, slightly above the average for emerging markets.
More work is needed in education and skilling levels to adapt to automation.
Policies should ensure a level playing field and support social security nets and reskilling programs.
Singapore’s program of lifelong learning grants is an example of how to complement automation with skill development.
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