Our love of government jobs isn’t good for the economy

Last week, pictures and videos of youth travelling through the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh to write the exam for the Uttar Pradesh Preliminary Eligibility Test went viral. The report pointed out: “According to the study the total emoluments of a General Helper, who is the lowest ranked employee in the government is ₹22,579, more than two times the emoluments of a General Helper in the private sector organizations surveyed at ₹8,000- ₹9,500.” This clearly hasn’t changed. By this time, age catches up and many individuals become ineligible for most government jobs or the number of attempts they can take to write the exam finally runs out. An economist’s solution to this would be to cut wages in government jobs and bring them in line with the informal private sector’s. As Peter Zeihan writes in The End of the World is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization: “Most of the spending a person does occurs between the ages of fifteen and forty-five—that’s the life window when people are buying cars and homes… Such consumption-led activity is what drives an economy forward.” Given that many youth are unemployed till they reach the age of 30, this dynamic does not play out as it should.