From 2020 to 2040, India will have a large and growing section of its population in the working age, giving it a bigger workforce than China’s.
Deploying this large young workforce in productive areas could potentially create a huge economic output in the long run.

Due to rising labor costs, China is shifting focus to high-end manufacturing. With China vacating this space, a huge opportunity is up for grabs.

To begin with, labor cost in India is less than one-third of that in China. Secondly, the raw material is easily available. India is the world’s second largest cotton producer and no imports would be needed. Synthetic textiles are also manufactured in India. Availability of cotton and synthetic textiles, coupled with low labor cost, offers a huge advantage for apparel manufacturing in India which few other countries could match.

To add to it, more jobs can be created by investing in labor-intensive industries compared to automation-driven industries.

Every 0.1 million of rupees invested in apparel manufacturing is expected to create 24 new jobs compared to only 0.3 in automobiles or 0.1 in steel.

A structured policy on creating large local manufacturers in sectors like leather, apparel and footwear could go a long way in creating high volume jobs in India.