India Needs 8%-8.5% Growth To Create Enough Jobs, Says Raghuram Rajan

While India's expansion has outpaced that of other major economies, the country isn't creating enough jobs for the millions of people joining the workforce every year.

India's economy is showing signs of steady growth but needs to expand at a pace of over 8% to create enough jobs for the world's most populous nation, former Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan said.

"We should be going at 8%-8.5% given the needs of the population and the need for jobs," Mr Rajan said via video link at an event in Beijing on Friday. Economic growth at 6%-6.5% is strong compared with other countries, "but relative to our need for jobs I think it's still somewhat slow because we have a lot of young people who need to be employed."

While India's expansion has outpaced that of other major economies, the country isn't creating enough jobs for the millions of people joining the workforce every year. The overall unemployment rate climbed to 10.05% in October, the highest in more than two years, according to Mumbai-based researcher Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy.