For subscribers
India’s most valuable export: Tens of millions of workers
Sign up now: Get insights on Asia's fast-moving developments
Students hoping to work in Japan study Japanese at a language school in New Delhi.
PHOTO: ATUL LOKE/NYTIMES
Alex Travelli
NEW DELHI – India has a teeming population of able-bodied workers, tens of millions more than its employers can accommodate. Many other countries have the opposite problem: more jobs than workers.
Today, across India’s government and business sectors, a movement is gaining steam to begin exporting more workers. The idea, which economists call labour mobility, is to connect young Indians to companies in places with shrinking populations where labour shortages are holding back growth.
