In the last 10 years, less than one per cent of the total number of unemployed persons registered with the various employment exchanges in the Capital have managed to find employment. According to numbers released in the Delhi Assembly last week, of the 10,16,828 people registered with the employment exchange since 2003 only 11,242 have found placements.
Further, the placements show a figure of 426 in 2003 which then drastically dipped to 23 in 2008 and 16 in 2009. This was against the total registrations of 64,866 in 2008 and 1,07,751 in 2009. Perhaps, the Commonwealth Games provided some respite in 2010 with placement numbers jumping to 8,651. Last year, of the 1,38,327 registrations, 1,349 received placements.
The information was requested in the Delhi Assembly by BJP MLA and Chief Whip Sahab Singh Chauhan under the ‘Starred Questions’ who also wanted to know if the Delhi Government was providing any allowance for the unemployed youth. The abysmal placement levels, revealed by Minister of Power and Employment Haroon Yusuf, prompted members of the Opposition BJP to question the need of the employment exchanges. Mr. Yusuf also informed the House that the employment exchanges were not supposed to generate jobs but just forward to agencies that have vacancies.
“The role of employment exchanges has gradually started declining with coming up of a number of recruiting agencies like DSSSB, Staff Selection Commission, Railway Recruitment Board, Banking Service Recruitment Board etc.” said the written statement from the Ministry.
According to the ‘working report for the year 2012’ which was also furnished in the House, a total number of 475 employers had notified 7293 vacancies which was uploaded online for the benefit of the unemployed candidates. Among these the largest number of vacancies was with the local bodies followed by the private sector.
