Indian Business, Economic Development, and the Jobs Dilemma in the Twenty-first Century

This book examines the relationship between Indian business and economic development. The relationship, mediated by the state, is explored through the lens of business sectors to identify how they contribute to the different facets of economic development such as growth, exports, economic diversification, technology, and especially employment. Written in an accessible way, it surveys a range of industries and business sectors as part of India's quest for economic development as a late industrializer. Most of these business sectors generate development in some form, including some newer sectors such as e-commerce, digitalization, and green energy. However, critical as they might be for the foundation of a vibrant, modern economy, they are shown to be inadequate to make a dent in India's massive surplus labour. The paradox is that India's economy recently has been growing rapidly but has been unable to create enough decent jobs. Every year approximately 16 million new jobs must be created to absorb just the new workers that enter the labour force. Roughly 90% of employment is currently in precarious, low-wage or self-employment jobs in the informal sector that receive practically no social protection. This grim reality is a complex outcome of a structural stalemate that has resulted from the coexistence of low-productivity agriculture, premature deindustrialization, and a vast, persistent informal sector. This three-legged structural deadlock is attributed to India's late capitalist experience, or “compressed capitalism,” which is a product of institutional legacies, policy choices, and external conditions. In the context of a massive workforce looking for jobs in an impoverished economy with a dysfunctional state-business nexus, creating such a large number of decent jobs is a herculean task. Today, the changing external environment with new technologies and artificial intelligence, competition from China and other parts of Asia, and unanticipated American tariff threats and visa restrictions for high-value service providers have further compounded India's jobs dilemma in the twenty-first century. Tackling the employment challenge will require a fundamental rethinking of strategies to boost the domestic market with demand-side policies while smartly adjusting to the uncertainties of the international economic and political environment.

Anthony P. D'Costa is an Honorary Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne. He has taught at the University of Washington, National University of Singapore, Copenhagen Business School, University of Melbourne, and the University of Alabama in Huntsville. He is widely published and has lectured on the political economy of development in India and industrialization, globalization, and economic development in East Asia. He has been a recipient of numerous fellowships, including Fulbright-Hays, American Institute of Indian Studies, Abe of the Japan Foundation, UNU-WIDER, Helsinki; Korea Foundation, and POSCO at the East West Center, Honolulu. Most recently, he edited The Oxford Handbook of the New Space Economy (2025).