Centre, states to fill up 2 million vacancies

Centre, states to fill up 2 million vacancies

The government is looking to address unemployment by ensuring that about 2 million vacancies at state and central level, including public sector enterprises, are filled. To begin, with it’s looking to fill vacancies in central ministries and 244 public sector enterprises, with the Indian Railways alone having more than 200,000 posts to be filled.

The move, initiated by the labour ministry, will help ward off criticism about jobless growth. The ministry will assess vacancies in all central government departments and organisations and, based on the number, arrive at a plan that can be rolled out with timelines to fill posts on a daily, weekly and monthly basis, a senior government official told ET.

Successive governments have put the brakes on hiring to curb administrative costs. The latest move, which will be rolled out over the next few months, will see a reversal in that trend at a time when the government is looking to keep its fiscal deficit on target.

It is estimated that there are over 600,000 vacant central ministry posts and the exercise, if successful, could be replicated at the state level, which may lead to 2 million people getting employed.

“Labour ministry will soon write to all ministries and CPSEs (central public sector enterprises) to share a list of vacancies across their division, following which it will set up a daily target for itself to provide employment to the large number of youth entering the workforce every year,” the official said.

The exercise will help the Central government assess the total number of jobs that the government itself can provide on a daily and monthly basis.

The government is under pressure to create jobs with about 1 million people said to be entering the workforce every month. Industry estimates that in FY12-16, India created 3.65 million new jobs a year.

India had a workforce of 473.6 million in FY12. Of these, 230 million were in agriculture and 240 million in industry and services.

The labour ministry is entering this area for the first time, to ensure that the government takes the first big step towards job creation. Traditionally, the ministry has acted as a facilitator between job seekers and job providers, for which it has set up a national career portal.

Source: The Economic Times