Experts, however, say that there will be an uptick in job creation as productivity rises and more manpower is needed.
New Delhi: For more than one crore 46 lakh job seekers in India, just a little over 4,26,000 jobs are available, including in both the private as well as government sectors in the country, according to data available on the Ministry of Labour’s website. The highest number of vacancies is available in Maharashtra, at 66,930 posts vacant, followed like Karnataka and Delhi which have over 50,000 vacancies.
The Ministry of Labour’s website also has a registration of more than 7,700 employers and the Ministry also states that these are the number of vacancies and job seekers that are registered with the Ministry of Labour and those who have uploaded their profile with the Ministry.
The highest number of job seekers comes from the age group of 18-24 years as it is during these years that a person ventures out for the first time in search of jobs. The second highest number of job seekers comes from the age group 25-34 years and this, according to experts, is because of the volatility of this age group which seeks to get better opportunities.
Earlier this year, the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation in its report pegged India’s unemployment rate at 6.1% in 2017-18, which is considered to be the highest in the last 45 years. Unemployment woes in India have also increased in the last few months as a huge number of layoffs from several sectors were reported in the last few months. The maximum number of layoffs have been from the automobile sector.
However, economists believe that the situation in India is likely to improve in the coming months with the government and the Ministry of Finance announcing a slew of measures in the last one month to improve the economic situation in the country and infuse confidence among investors.
Dr S.P. Sharma, Chief Economist, PHDCCI (PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry) told The Sunday Guardian, “During the last few months, the government has brought a lot of reforms for the economy and these are ground-touching reforms. The reforms in the MSME and infrastructure sectors are going to have direct impact on the people. Like never before, this government is hand-holding the MSME sector for reforms. Given this, going forward, I think there is going to be an uptick in job creation in the country as productivity will increase and for this manpower would be needed.” “Moreover, the government on Friday reduced the corporate tax rate and this is definitely a positive sign as corporates and small-scale businesses will have more money in their hands to employ people and for capital investment,” he added.
Sharma said that growth in the economy would also be able to arrest a lot of the unemployment problem because if India grows at a rate of 8% or 9%, the market will deploy a lot of workforce to meet this growth target. However, digging deeper into employment data in India, it is found that the primary sector, which consists mostly of agriculture and allied activities, still dominates employment in the rural section, while in the urban section, tertiary sector, which is the service sector industry, dominates the largest workforce. The secondary sector, which comprises the manufacturing sector, has hardly grown in India since 1994.