The American Story: Slow Hiring, Not Massive Firing
The US job market is showing some pretty confusing signals right now. Companies added just 119,000 jobs in September 2025, but here’s the twist – that was actually better than what economists expected. Unemployment stands at 4.4%, which historically isn’t terrible, but it’s been creeping up steadily.
What’s really happening is what experts call a “jobless expansion.” The economy is growing, GDP looks decent, but companies simply aren’t hiring. Between May and August 2025, job gains averaged a mere 31,000 per month – that’s about one-fifth of last year’s pace. Think about that for a moment.
The government shutdown made things even messier, leaving us flying blind without proper data for weeks. But when you dig through what’s available, you see a troubling pattern. Job postings on Indeed have fallen to their lowest levels since 2021. Companies are being cautious, not reckless. They’re not laying people off in droves, but they’re definitely not bringing new folks in either.
President Trump’s tariff policies and immigration crackdowns have made employers nervous. Why hire when you don’t know what tomorrow’s policies will bring? The result? If you’re looking for work right now, you’re competing with fewer and fewer openings. Some people are giving up entirely – over 800,000 have left the labour force but still want jobs.
Here’s something that should worry everyone: about 62% of Americans believe unemployment will get worse in the coming year. That’s recession-level pessimism, even if we’re not technically in a recession yet.
India’s Different Headache: Jobs Are There, Skills Aren’t
Now flip to India, and you’ll find a completely different story. The unemployment rate actually dropped to 5.2% in October 2025. Sounds good, right? Not so fast.
The real crisis in India isn’t about not having enough jobs – it’s about having people who can actually do them. A shocking new report found that only 42.6% of Indian graduates are actually employable. Let that sink in. More than half of graduates coming out of our colleges aren’t ready for the workplace.
Why? Our education system is stuck in the past. While companies desperately need people who know AI, data analytics, cloud computing and digital marketing, colleges are still teaching the same old theoretical stuff. It’s like preparing students for jobs that existed 20 years ago.
The problem cuts deeper. Engineering graduates? India produces 1.5 million of them every year, but only 10% can actually get jobs. Not because jobs don’t exist, but because they don’t have the skills employers want. Ford’s CEO mentioned he can’t fill 5,000 mechanic positions paying $120,000 annually in the US. In India, young engineers would rather chase IT or government jobs than work in factories, even when manufacturing is offering good salaries.
By 2027, India’s skills gap could reach a staggering 47-49 million workers. Sectors like automobiles, healthcare, semiconductors, renewable energy – they’re all screaming for talent but can’t find people with the right training.
Urban youth unemployment tells the real story: it jumped to 19% in July 2025. Rural areas are doing slightly better because agricultural work absorbs some people, but that’s not exactly a victory. Many rural workers are underemployed or stuck in jobs without any social security.
Two Worlds, Two Crises
So here’s where we stand. America’s problem is economic uncertainty killing job creation. Companies have the money, they have the work, but they’re too nervous to pull the trigger on hiring. It’s a crisis of confidence.
India’s problem is structural. We have young people desperate for work, we have companies desperate for workers, but the two can’t connect because the education system has failed to build that bridge. It’s a crisis of preparation.
Which is worse? Hard to say, honestly. In the US, once policy uncertainties clear up, hiring could bounce back relatively quickly. In India, fixing our skills gap requires overhauling an entire education system – a job that’ll take years, even with the best intentions.
What’s clear is this: whether you’re facing a recession or a skills crisis, young people looking for decent work are getting the short end of the stick. The solutions are different, but the frustration is universal.
The question isn’t whether the job market is heading for crisis – we’re already there. The question is: what are we going to do about it?
