As Bihar prepares for Assembly elections in November, the issue of unemployment in the state has taken center-stage. The three major political blocs in Bihar have all promised jobs for the youth if they come to power — perhaps an admission of the severity of joblessness in the state.
Months ahead of polls, the incumbent chief minister and JD(U) chief Nitish Kumar, while reportedly sharing the stage with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Bodh Gaya on 22 August, promised providing 50,000 jobs and employment before the Assembly elections and one crore jobs in the next five years.
RJD leader and Bihar’s former deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav, too, jumped on the bandwagon, with a long post on X right after Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar announced the election schedule for the state.
“There won’t be a single household in Bihar, where a young person is unemployed. Tejashwi will provide government jobs to all. What the NDA government could not achieve in 17 years, we accomplished in 17 months,” he posted on X.
Meanwhile, Jan Suraaj Party founder Prashant Kishor slammed Nitish for “reannouncing old schemes” and Lalu Prasad Yadav’s RJD for ignoring the issue of unemployment. He pointed out that “lakhs of young people leave the state because of work” and promised reform if his party comes to power.
The issue of unemployment in Bihar is not a new one. During the last election in 2020, Tejashwi Yadav had promised 10 lakh permanent government jobs—a poll plank which got his party the maximum number of seats in the 243-seat Assembly; even though it didn’t end up forming the government.
Election after election, manifesto after manifesto; political parties have lured people with the promise of jobs and employment benefits. Yet millions migrate from Bihar to other states (and other countries) in search of work. Why? Let’s look at the broad pattern of employment and jobs in Bihar:
Nearly Half Working Age Population Out of Bihar's Labour Force
Bihar’s Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR) was the lowest among big states for FY-24, as per the latest annual report of the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS).
LFPR is defined as the the number of people who are either employed or actively seeking work as a percentage of the total population. Bihar’s LFPR stood at 55 percent, which means that a little over half of its working age population (15-59 years) is either actively working or looking for work.
The remaining 45 percent of the working age population is out of the labour force, which may be attributed to the discouraged worker effect, extremely low wages, lack of formal jobs, and skill mismatch.
If we look closely, the labour force participation is even lower in urban Bihar as compared to rural Bihar, indicating more agrarian employment than formal jobs in the state.
The condition is worse for Bihar’s youth. LFPR for a young working population (15-29 years) stood at 34.6 percent— the lowest among big Indian states. This implies only one in three youths in either employed or looking for work, while the rest have left Bihar’s labour force, possibly seeking jobs in other states.
Only One in Ten Young Women Employed/Seeking Work
The labour force participation among working age (15-59 years) women remains the lowest in urban Bihar, with just 18 percent women actively employed or seeking work. By contrast, LFPR for women in the in rural Bihar stands at 33.5 percent.
The numbers fall even lower when we look at data for young (15-29 years) women—with LFPR for rural young women being 15.3 percent while that for urban women being 10.7 percent.
This means that only one in ten young women in urban Bihar are either employed or actively seeking work.
Nine on ten women being out of the workforce may either be attributed disproportionate burden of household responsibilities or lack of formal jobs in secure spaces. Besides, women’s willingness to work depends on access to transport as well as the duration of work.
Cash Transfer to Women Underlines Gendered Job Creation
In fact, targeted welfare schemes for women, including direct cash transfers, could be implicit acceptance that job creation has been extremely gendered.
On 26 September, ten days before the election schedule was announced, PM Modi launched the Mukhyamantri Mahila Rozgar Yojana, under which the Bihar government will transfer Rs 10,000 directly into the accounts of 75 lakh women.
“I am confident that the implementation of the scheme will not only help strengthen the women’s condition but will also create better employment opportunities within the state. Women will become self-reliant. The scheme will boost the economic growth of the state,” Nitish Kumar reportedly said as he released the third tranche of the benefit last week.
So far, Rs 12,100 crore have been transferred to 1.21 crore women in Bihar, according to a report in The Times of India.
Meanwhile, the RJD-Congress coalition led by Tejashwi Yadav promised a monthly financial assistance of Rs 2,500 to women belonging to vulnerable and backward communities under the Mai Bahin Maan Yojana.
Unemployment Highest Among Women, Graduates, Postgraduates
Unemployment rate is defined as the total number of unemployed people as a percentage of the labour force. According to the PLFS framework, a person would be categorised as employed if they have performed any economic activity for an hour in the last seven days, or for at least 30 days in the last year.
Despite the low participation in the workforce, Bihar’s unemployment rate was recorded at a mere 3.3 percent among the working age population—7.7 percent in urban areas and 2.9 percent in rural areas. Unemployment was highest among urban women and stood at 9.7 percent.
Among the youth, the unemployment rate was registered at 9.9 percent — 22.2 percent in urban areas and 8.8 percent in rural areas. Besides, unemployment is highest among graduates (14.7%) and postgraduates (19%).
But what is the reason behind the rather low overall unemployment rate? Bihar’s Economic Survey 2024-25 provides two credible reasons for this:
A large portion of the working-age population is engaged in informal activities
The unemployment rate represents open unemployment, where one is looking for work but cannot find it.
And when most of the working-age population is poor and unskilled, they cannot afford to remain unemployed for a long time; they need daily income to survive. So they take up any available work (like casual labor, farm work, or street vending), even if it’s irregular, informal, or low-paid.
This creates a condition called disguised unemployment, where workers are technically employed even if they are engaged in unproductive work—making the official unemployment rate artificially low.
In addition, 90.8 percent of male workers and 78.8 percent of female workers in Bihar were employed in the informal sector.
Bulk of Rural Women Engaged in (Unpaid) Household Work
A higher LFPR and lower unemployment rate in rural areas as compared to cities does not necessarily mean more paid jobs in the state’s villages.
In rural Bihar, nearly two-thirds of the working age men are self-employed (50.4% own account workers; 11.3% household helpers), one-third are engaged in casual labour, while only 8.4 percent are regular-waged employees.
By contrast, nearly 85 percent of rural women are self employed—more than 45 percent as household helpers.
Economist Dipa Sinha had earlier told The Quint that in times of distress, it has been seen women re-enter the labour force, although often it is as unpaid helpers. And since PLFS categorises unpaid work under self-employed, the bul of rural women fall in this category.
At the same time, a little over half men are self-employed, 29 percent regular waged and the remaining in casual labour in urban Bihar. The proportion of women in household help is relatively less while that in regular-waged work is more when compared to rural Bihar.
Jobs Created in Agriculture; Fell in Manufacturing, Professional Services
According to Bihar’s Economic Survey, 54.2 percent of the employment was in the agriculture sector in 2023-24—up from 45.2 percent in 2017-18. At the same time, employment in manufacturing has witnessed a drop from 12.1 percent in 2017-18 to 11.4 percent in 2023-24. Jobs in the services sector have also witnessed a slight dip in the same period.
The gender wise distribution of workers across sectors suggests that an overwhelming majority of female workers (81.2 percent) were engaged in the agriculture sector compared to 42.9 percent of male workers.
So, next time when a political leader or party promises jobs, one must question them about the nature, form and structure of that job.