Hundred Million Jobs: India Launches National Initiative for Employment Creation

A group of senior industry leaders announced the launch of the Hundred Million Jobs initiative on Monday, targeting the creation of 100 million jobs in India over the next decade. Announced by Harish Mehta (Nasscom co-founder), A J Patel (The Indus Entrepreneurs founder), and K Yatish Rajawat (Centre for Innovation in Public Policy founder), the initiative addresses India's critical employment gap despite rapid economic growth. India's working-age population expands by approximately 12 million annually, yet employment growth has lagged economic output expansion, raising concerns that growth could become disconnected from job creation.

Addressing India's Employment Challenge

India needs to generate 8-9 million jobs annually to absorb new workforce entrants and capitalize on its demographic dividend. However, traditional job engines such as manufacturing have struggled to scale, while automation and artificial intelligence reshape business models and reduce entry-level opportunities across sectors. The Hundred Million Jobs mission places entrepreneurship, reskilling, and job-intensive enterprise development at the centre of India's employment strategy, making job creation a core metric of economic development. The framework emphasizes distributed and resilient livelihoods across regions rather than concentrated urban employment.

Seven-Pillar Framework and Implementation Strategy

The initiative operates as a systems-led effort to strengthen job creators, including entrepreneurs, MSMEs, and employers, by aligning skills, enterprise, data, and policy. Rajawat described India's employment challenge as fundamentally a "systems challenge" requiring shifts in both business and government mindsets. The mission is built around a seven-pillar framework designed to enable job creation across regions and sectors. Patel emphasized that startups and small enterprises, accounting for 30% of India's GDP and serving as the largest employers, must scale beyond major cities. Addressing structural barriers is essential to make entrepreneurship a practical engine of mass employment rather than a limited aspiration.

Industry and Government Support

The initiative is structured as a collaborative platform supported by leaders from industry, civil society, and government. Charter signatories include Infosys founder N R Narayana Murthy, former NITI Aayog vice-chairman Rajiv Kumar, former McKinsey senior partner Rajat Gupta, Fractal co-founder Srikanth Velamkanni, legal expert Nishith Desai, BCG India head Rahul Jain, and Network18 chairman Adil Zainulbhai. Hundred Million Jobs, a non-profit initiative developed in partnership with CIPP, will work with government, industry, and civil society to promote entrepreneurship, strengthen local economies, and enable large-scale reskilling programs across India.