To set some context, here are two recent perspectives on the Indian labour market: 1) The McKinsey Global Institute in a 2017 report calls out that the labour market in India is undergoing a significant structural shift, away from agriculture and towards the non-farm sector, particularly construction, trade, and transportation. 2) The finance ministry’s Economic Survey 2018 lists “finding good jobs for the young and burgeoning workforce, especially for women” and “creating an educated and healthy labour force” as two of its key employment policy areas in the medium term.

An estimated 12 million young Indians enter the job market each year. While a small number of these youth can access jobs that ride on the growth of e-commerce, digital finance etc., for most there remain challenges and that is where we see an opportunity for start-ups.

On the human capital front, the challenges include lack of skills and employability and startups that can help boost human capital through digital training, micro skilling etc. are where we see opportunities.

We also see potential in the job seeker to job matching space, especially around accessing SME jobs that are local, freelancer/gig-based jobs, emerging work opportunities and current but growing opportunities that are part of established value chains—where technology can help with discovery and matching.

A third opportunity that excites us is horizontal platform plays that are enablers across the labour market ecosystem—be it in financing, data etc.

At Unitus Ventures, we have made investments in companies working on solving these challenges. We’ll continue to invest in this area, as we remain excited about the potential of this space in India and believe that technology can drive significant change in this large market.

This article was originally published on LiveMint >