New Delhi: Highlighting a dismal gap in human capital utilization, a government survey has reported that 25% youth (15-29 age group) in nearly half the districts in Odisha are neither engaged in any productive work nor are they pursuing education or any sort of training for work.
The situation is equally bad in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Assam for such youth categorized as NEET (not in employment, education or training) by the government.
However, Odisha’s Nabarangpur district has bucked the trend with a low NEET rate of 4.1%.
The findings were reported in the first-ever district-level periodic labour force survey (PLFS) for 2025, released by the Union Statistics Ministry on Friday.
The ministry’s report covered around 600 districts in major states and UTs. In some cases, it clubbed a few adjoining districts and treated them as a single unit.
The situation is of particular concern in states such as Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab and West Bengal, where nearly two-thirds of districts have around 25% youth categorized as NEET.
On the other hand, South 24 Parganas (West Bengal) and Araria (Bihar) were ranked as the two districts with the lowest unemployment rate of 0.9%. They were followed by Ahmedabad (Gujarat) at 1.1%, Surat and Banaskantha (both Gujarat) 1.2%, Bareilly and Bulandshahr (both UP) 1.2%, Belgavi (Karnataka) 1.5%, Palghar and Nanded (both Maharashtra) 1.5%.
Generally, high unemployment rate among youth is attributed to their participation in education or engagement with skilling or vocational programs. NEET, however, represents those people who are not enrolled anywhere with any educational institution and also withdrawn from the labour force altogether.