You don’t have any Active Subscription.

Subscribed with another email? Logout and Login with that one.

Your active subscription(s)

Account subscription benefits alongside Premium Stories, Editorials, Opinions and more. Unlock these with Subscription

Products you've access to

Additional Subscription Benefits

Need help with your subscription?

Updated - October 19, 2026 12:36 am IST - Chennai

Representative image | Photo Credit: Getty Images

Over half of Tamil Nadu’s youth hold a degree, the highest share of any State, and have regular salaried jobs, a survey has found.

In the age group of 22 to 29 years, 52% hold a degree and 56% of those in the labour force have regular salaried jobs, according to the findings of the Tamil Nadu Handbook of Youth Opportunity, released by the Future of India Foundation and the Chennai International Centre (CIC) on Saturday.

Share of young women in work rose from 19% to 25% and the proportion of those in neither work nor education nor training declined from 49% to 40%.

On the flip side, graduates make up two-thirds of the State’s unemployed. Forty per cent of young women and 10% of young men are neither working nor in education or training.

The silver lining, perhaps, is that over eight years up to 2025, unemployment among 15 to 29-year-olds fell from 26% to 14%, and the share of young people in neither work nor education nor training fell from 34% to 25%.

Pay, however, remained low as 71% of workers between 15 and 29 years earned less than ₹20,000 a month. If it is any solace, the average regular salary of workers in the age group rose by 17% to ₹17,100 in real terms in eight years up to 2025.

C. Chandramouli, Managing Director, CIC; M. Suresh Babu, Director, Madras Institute of Development Studies; Ramesh Mangaleswaran, Senior Partner Emeritus, McKinsey, and Ruchi Gupta, Executive Director, Future of India Foundation, were present at the unveiling of the handbook, which can be accessed at youthpower.in/handbook/tamilnadu

Published - October 17, 2026 09:58 pm IST

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.