HYDERABAD : Two years ago, with the employment market in his drought-hit district as dry as the earth, Bhaliya made his way to this high-tech city and found salvation in a low-tech straw broom. 

He became a street sweeper, earning Rs 1,800 a month. His wife became a sweeper too, leaving three toddlers in the neighbour's care. 

Each day since, they have bent to clear errant flotsam from curbs and straightened to see the imagery of the new India : Billboards advertising cars, mobile phones and Louis Phillipe shirts. 

The temptations are forever out of reach. Yet Bhaliya counts himself lucky. ''We have to work to live,'' he says, knowing better than to ask for more. India 's economy is spawning a growing middle class, a host of world-class companies and a booming stock market. But these very reforms are also reducing the prospects of some of its citizens. India may be ''shining'' but it is also struggling to generate jobs. The public sector, once a stalwart of security, has lost some 4.5 million jobs in the past six years. 

In Andhra Pradesh, government recruitment has been frozen and the government has cottoned to private sector practicalities. Street sweeping—once a government job that paid triple what it does now and came with perks —has been outsourced to private contractors. 

The streets of Hyderabad have never been cleaner, its budget never leaner, and for workers, the insecurity never greater. With greater efficiencies, global competition, cheap capital and new technology, private firms are doing more with fewer workers. For many, though, this has only meant the trickle-down of raised expectations. Economists say India 's unemployment figure of 8% masks a far higher real rate.