A consortium of prominent industry figures came together on Monday to initiate the Hundred Million Jobs (HMJ) project, a national effort aimed at generating 10 crore jobs in India over the forthcoming decade.

This collaborative initiative, introduced by Harish Mehta, a co-founder of Nasscom, A.J. Patel, the founder of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), and K. Yatish Rajawat, the founder of The Centre for Innovation in Public Policy (CIPP), emerges as India encounters a distinct scenario of a swiftly advancing economy coupled with a shortage of employment opportunities.

India’s working-age population is continually increasing by 12 million individuals each year. The nation must create between 8 to 9 million jobs annually for the next decade to accommodate new workers and to leverage its demographic advantage.

“Building upon the success driven by skills from Nasscom and the global entrepreneurship framework established by TiE, the Hundred Million Jobs Mission is a comprehensive effort aimed at bolstering job creators, entrepreneurs, MSMEs, and employers—by aligning skills, enterprise, data, and policy to provide resilient and dignified livelihoods for the upcoming generation,” stated Harish Mehta, Co-Founder of Nasscom, in a press release.

“Startups and small businesses contribute 30 percent of India’s GDP and are the primary sources of employment. Our focus lies in enhancing the entrepreneurial engine in India’s smaller towns and districts. If India aspires to generate 8-9 million jobs each year, it is essential to address certain structural challenges to transform entrepreneurship into a widely held aspiration and a viable catalyst for mass employment,” emphasized A.J. Patel, Founder of TiE, the largest entrepreneurial network for Indians globally.

Although India’s economy is one of the fastest expanding worldwide, job creation has not kept up with this growth.

The rise of automation and artificial intelligence is transforming business models and diminishing the number of conventional entry-level positions across various sectors, both in services and manufacturing.

The disconnect between economic growth and job creation is becoming increasingly pronounced. However, this challenge also opens up significant opportunities for entrepreneurs to establish job-heavy industries.

To address this issue, Hundred Million Jobs prioritizes entrepreneurship and reskilling as critical components of India’s employment strategy, along with other necessary foundational elements that require enhancement.

The group’s objective is to ensure that dignified, widespread, and resilient job creation becomes the primary metric for India’s development.

“India’s employment issue is primarily a systems issue. Creating jobs at scale hinges on several factors, including business models and sectors that are labor-intensive, but crucially, it necessitates a shift in mindset from both the business community and the government. The policy challenge lies in making job growth a central focus of economic advancement,” remarked K. Yatish Rajawat, Founder-CEO of The Centre For Innovation Policy.

“The Hundred Million Jobs mission addresses this by reinforcing and promoting a seven-pillar framework designed to facilitate job creation across India in a distributed manner,” he continued.

Hundred Million Jobs operates as a cooperative platform backed by leadership from industry, civil society, and government entities.