Kerala’s most uncomfortable truth is also its most visible one: we are producing educated youth faster than we are producing dignified work. Degrees are abundant. Waiting is permanent. Migration has quietly become the default employment policy.
This is not a failure of young people. It is a failure of governance architecture.
For decades, the social contract was simple—study well, get educated, and work will follow. That contract has broken. Not because youth lack skills or discipline, but because the economy and the state have failed to evolve pathways that absorb educated human capital at scale.
Kerala Vision 2047 – Youth Work Guarantee 2.0_
The Youth Work Guarantee 2.0 proposes a structural correction.
Instead of treating educated unemployment as a “skills problem” or a “placement problem,” this policy reframes it as a work availability problem. The core idea is direct and unapologetic: if the state can guarantee education, it must also guarantee access to work—at least for a transitional period—so that education does not end in idleness.
This is not a demand for permanent government jobs. Nor is it a revival of old-style employment guarantees designed for manual labour. Youth Work Guarantee 2.0 is built for a post-degree, post-outsourcing, post-exam economy. It offers paid, time-bound, socially useful work that builds experience, dignity, and public value.
The policy recognises an obvious but ignored reality. Kerala has no shortage of work to be done. Local governments struggle with digitisation. Climate adaptation projects lack manpower. Public services are overburdened. The care economy is stretched thin. What is missing is not work—but a system that connects work to youth.
Youth Work Guarantee 2.0 does exactly that. It treats educated youth not as beneficiaries, but as contributors to state capacity. Young adults are deployed to strengthen governance, services, and resilience while earning income and building real portfolios of work.
Kerala Vision 2047 – Youth Work Guarantee 2.0_
This shift matters politically and socially. Unemployment statistics can be debated. Visible work cannot. When citizens see young people working in local bodies, public offices, schools, health centres, and community systems, governance becomes tangible again.
The policy is also fiscally grounded. It relies on reallocation, not reckless expansion. It replaces fragmented skill schemes, outsourcing contracts, and reactive relief with a coherent mission focused on real output. Over time, it reduces migration pressure, dependency, and social frustration—costs that are currently invisible but enormous.
Most importantly, Youth Work Guarantee 2.0 restores dignity. It tells young people that the state trusts them with responsibility, not just training modules. It tells families that education is still meaningful within Kerala. And it tells society that work is not charity—it is contribution.
At Vastuta, we believe the next phase of governance must move beyond slogans like “job creation” and confront absorption directly. Educated youth should not be parked in waiting rooms—coaching centres, exam cycles, or foreign departures.
If Kerala wants to remain socially stable, politically confident, and economically resilient by 2047, it must make one thing clear:
Education must not end in waiting.
Work must begin with dignity.
