This summer, a bank branch of the State Bank of India, a venerable Indian public institution, opened in Chhapora, a small isolated village in Chhattisgarh, one of the poorest states in the country. Shiny signs, brand new computers stored behind counters, forms printed with the bank logo: who could have imagined that this new agency was actually fake? Especially since the crooks, claiming a delay in the delivery of the servers, had refused to take the wads of banknotes brought by the residents, relieved to finally be able to place their savings somewhere other than under a mattress or a pile of saris. The scammers got rich in other ways, by demanding money against the promise of a job at the State Bank of India. They collected tens of thousands of euros and then disappeared into thin air. Only one of them was arrested. We must recognize in them a certain sense of inventiveness. By being alerted to online scams, we forget that bank fraud is not just virtual. The scammers have understood that mass unemployment is a scourge that is plaguing India. Jobs have become so rare that the unemployed are ready to do anything to get them, especially if it is a civil servant job. At the end of 2022, job seekers were victims of a similar scam, this time promising jobs in the Indian railways. After allegedly recruiting them for a commission, the crooks sent them to stations to count trains, before disappearing. The private sector offers very precarious working conditions and cases of overwork are increasing, as shown by the recent suicide of a young employee of the auditing giant EY. Read the report | Article reserved for our subscribers In India, the disenchantment of young graduates Read later Many other developing countries are threatened by unemployment. “The specter of unemployment looms worryingly, with 800 million young people potentially finding themselves without real employment, at the risk of destabilizing societies and slowing down economic growth,” worried Ajay Banga, the President of the World Bank, in October, during the joint general meetings with the International Monetary Fund. This scourge is poorly recorded, therefore invisible, and is often confused with the informal sector, small jobs which consist of pressing the button of an elevator or opening the doors of a store. You have 39.53% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
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