New Delhi, May 11 -- India's unemployment debate is missing a crucial dimension: time. Time spent waiting is a loss at any age, but especially so in one's youth. For both the individual and the country, it is a loss of prime productive years.

Last year, 11.6 million Indians in their 20s were unemployed and about 6.8 million of them had been job hunting for over a year. The long wait may not necessarily reflect a shortage of jobs, but a mismatch between the jobs on offer and what young Indians aspire to.

These numbers understate the full picture: another 78 million in the same age group were not looking for work at all as per our estimates based on the Periodic Labour Survey data for 2025.

In Rajasthan, Assam, Jharkhand, Odisha and West...