The Valley's Private Sector Void

Kashmir's job problem is rooted less in markets and more in how employers treat work.

- Irshad Mushtaq

I was standing outside a bakery on Residency Road last month when a young man in a pressed outfit asked if I knew any office that needed "a boy for a few weeks.

He had walked from Budgam at dawn because the temp agency that promised him a data-entry shift had sent a WhatsApp at 10 pm, saying the job was gone.

The boy still came, "in case they change mind again."

The bakery owner watched the exchange and shrugged. "This is how it works," he said. "We hire for a week and pay when we can. It keeps things flexible."

Flexible, the man replied, means nothing is fixed.

In that brief exchange, Kashmir's private sector comes into focus. Work is offered as a favour, given today, and taken back tomorrow.

The result is a valley where tourists see houseboats and apple orchards, but locals see a labour market that never solidified into steady, scaleable companies.

We keep asking why Kashmir's unemployment rate stays above the national average. The louder question is why anyone expects investment to grow where the rules of employment are rewritten each morning.

In many private offices in Srinagar, employees cannot remember their last paid holiday. Appointment letters are rare. Provident fund deductions show up on payslips, but the money never reaches their accounts.

A trade survey conducted this spring found that 68 percent of private-sector employees had been paid late at least once in the previous six months. One in four said the delay stretched beyond 90 days.

When salaries turn into surprises, rent, school fees, and insulin become gambles.

Families adapt by keeping sons in government-exam coaching centers and placing daughters on short-term teaching contracts, sustaining the belief that private work is only "supplementary."

In reality, supplementary work has become central, and it is bleeding talent.