When a Teacher Becomes a Cab Driver: A Structural Signal from India’s Economy

In contemporary India, the sight of a trained schoolteacher driving a cab is no longer an anecdote meant to shock; it is a structural signal. It reflects not an individual failure, but a deeper transformation in the way the Indian economy creates, allocates, and values work. At a time when the country officially acknowledges a shortage of nearly a million teachers across public schools, thousands of qualified educators find themselves locked out of classrooms and pulled into the gig economy, navigating cities instead of shaping young minds. This paradox sits at the heart of India’s current employment crisis.

Historically, teaching in India was a classic avenue of social mobility. It was stable, respected, and tied closely to the expanding welfare role of the state after Independence. The post-1990 liberalization period altered this trajectory. While demand for education expanded rapidly—through population growth, rising aspirations, and private schooling—the structure of employment within education did not keep pace. Public sector hiring slowed due to fiscal constraints, bureaucratic bottlenecks, and policy uncertainty. Private schools proliferated, but often with low pay, contractual appointments, and limited job security. The result is a surplus of trained teachers competing for a shrinking pool of dignified teaching jobs.

At the same time, India’s broader economic transformation has been marked by what economists describe as “jobless growth.” Services dominate GDP, but they generate fewer stable jobs than expected. Manufacturing, which historically absorbs semi-skilled and educated labor in large numbers, has underperformed relative to India’s workforce expansion. The education system continues to produce graduates—teachers included—at a faster pace than the formal economy can absorb them. This mismatch pushes qualified individuals into informal or semi-formal work, not because it matches their skills, but because it offers immediate income.

The gig economy enters precisely at this fault line. Platform-based work such as cab driving, food delivery, or online tutoring requires low entry barriers, flexible hours, and minimal credential screening. For an unemployed teacher facing loan repayments, family responsibilities, or prolonged recruitment delays, driving a cab becomes a rational short-term choice. Yet when such “temporary” adjustments become permanent for large sections of the workforce, they indicate structural underemployment rather than flexibility. Skills accumulated over years of training depreciate, professional identities erode, and productivity losses quietly accumulate in the economy.

This phenomenon also reflects a deeper reordering of risk. In earlier decades, the state absorbed employment risk through permanent jobs. Today, risk is shifted onto individuals. A teacher without a posting bears the cost of waiting; a cab driver absorbs fuel price volatility, platform commissions, and demand uncertainty. While the economy appears dynamic on the surface, it is increasingly characterized by precarious livelihoods beneath.

India is not alone in facing this contradiction. Globally, similar patterns have emerged wherever higher education expanded faster than suitable employment. In parts of North Africa and the Middle East, university graduates have long driven taxis or worked in informal trade due to weak private sectors. In developed economies, immigrant academics and even local teachers often supplement incomes through ride-hailing platforms. What distinguishes India is the scale: a young population, rapid educational expansion, and limited high-quality job creation converging simultaneously.

Looking ahead, the long-term implications are serious. Persistent educated underemployment can weaken faith in education itself, distort career incentives, and deepen inequality between those who access elite institutions and those who do not. It can also fuel social frustration, as aspirations collide with economic reality. From a growth perspective, the economy loses twice—first by failing to use trained human capital productively, and second by normalizing low-productivity work as a substitute for structural reform.

The teacher-turned-cab-driver is therefore not merely a story of personal resilience; it is a mirror held up to India’s development model. Addressing this challenge requires more than gig-economy absorption. It demands synchronized reforms in public hiring, education quality and planning, labor-intensive manufacturing, and service sectors capable of generating dignified, skill-appropriate employment. Without such alignment, India risks becoming an economy where degrees multiply, but destinies shrink—where classrooms train minds that the labor market has no place for, except behind a steering wheel.#EducatedUnemployment

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