Nearly 23% of Karnataka’s youth force under 35 years is neither working nor studying even with the State’s unemployment rate at 8.6%. A lack of or inadequate training with fewer opportunities for work is pushing the youth force to leave their homes and migrate to Bengaluru, straining the State capital, says a report on the state of young workers in Karnataka.
About 42% of the youth are in the workforce and about 35% are studying or in training, the report notes, adding that 44% are in regular salaried jobs.
Multiple parameters
Ranking districts against five parameters, namely education, readiness/skilling, opportunities, work and participation in workforce across sectors, Future of India Foundation on Wednesday (July 8) released ‘Karnataka State Handbook on Youth Opportunity’ with a YouthPOWER score card for districts. The report has brought together 180 indicators from 27 government databases, presenting a comparable score across the five parameters.
Wide disparity
Concentration of opportunities within formal work in and around Bengaluru and relatively limited opportunities elsewhere in the State are pushing youth out of their homes in search of work and livelihood to the city.
While Karnataka’s score at 48.5 is only marginally lower than the national score of 50, it exposes the stark difference in infrastructure and opportunities within the State; Yadgir district, among the most backward districts, scored 42 against the highest score of 65 by Bengaluru Urban.
The report also finds that the share of youth in the State’s labour force has moved up from 40% in 2017-18 to 45.6% in 2025 while unemployment has fallen from 15.8% to 8.6%, and real monthly wages have increased by about 23%. In the same period, training reach in terms of any vocational or technical training has increased from 6.5% to 28.5%.
Pointing out that Karnataka is among India’s most prosperous States, with the country’s deepest base of technology and industry, the report notes that the task was to turn the prosperity into opportunity for all its young people — not only in and around Bengaluru, but across the State. The task was to bring women fully into the workforce, convert education and skilling capacity into real skills and jobs, and ensure that the technology shift empowers young people rather than bypassing them.
The report has recommended preparing young people for work, supporting enterprise, creating local jobs and prioritising youth in district governance. “Ensuring that all youth succeed concerns all of us. The YouthPOWER score card gives elected representatives, administrators and citizens non-partisan language to act on it,” said Ruchi Gupta, executive director, Future of India Foundation.
Gender barriers play a part too
Despite implementation of the Shakti scheme, which offers free travel for women in Karnataka to participate in the workforce, the report states that more number of women are not allowed to travel alone to the market, clinic or beyond the community in 20 out of 31 districts in the State.
The report notes that in a dozen districts, most women do not have a say in household decisions that shape their lives. However, despite dealing with problems of early marriage, which is common in Koppal, more women have autonomy to travel on their own in the district. In nine districts, women widely read newspapers and magazines, pointing towards engagement with news and public affairs. But reading newspapers does not mean liberty for most women in Belagavi, Chitradurga, Hassan and Dharwad districts, where women are not allowed to travel on their own.
The report also notes that 24% of graduate unemployment is among women, and said that only one in four young women is in the workforce and only a third can travel to a market or clinic on their own.
Poor state of ITIs
Karnataka may boast of a large network of Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) that prepare youth with skills to join the workforce, but in many districts, a large number are leaving without the credentials the course is meant to deliver, according to the report. In Bagalkot, Bidar, Chikkamagaluru, Davangere, Kalaburagi, Kodagu, Raichur, Vijayanagar and Vijayapura, such cases have been reported. The report points out that though the State has one of the country’s largest networks of ITIs, about half of the trainer positions are vacant and only one in four registered enterprises take apprentices.
Personal loans
Mysuru and Udupi districts show a different character in lending. While most bank credit funds the productive economy of agriculture, industry and trade rather than personal consumption, which can channel capital towards job-creating businesses, in Mysuru and Udupi, bank credit leans towards personal loans. This could result in local lending not reaching the forms that generate work. Otherwise, most districts have bank credit that runs high relative to local deposits, pointing to active local demand for loans towards employment-generating purposes.
Published – July 09, 2026 06:00 am IST
