Women’s presence in public sector jobs in the State is yet to touch the 40% mark. In the private sector, it is slightly more than half, Labour Minister T.P. Ramakrishnan has said.
As per the December 2018 statistics, 12.37 lakh people work in organised sector in the State. Of this, the public sector accounts for 5.59 lakh people and the private sector, 6.78 lakh. However, of the public sector employees, only 1.92 lakh are women, 34.34% of the total.
On the other hand, women accounted for 3.4 lakh employees in the private sector, or 50.1%, slightly more than men, the Minister said, replying to questions in the Assembly on Monday.
According to the Minister, these figures revealed that the number of employed women in the State was higher than that indicated in the Labour Force Survey of the Central government which put their share of work force at 30.8%.
Even that is higher than the national average of 23.7%, the Minister said. “Only the northeastern States and States with industrial centres such as Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra and the union territories have a higher number of employed women. But high population States such as Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh have a lower percentage than Kerala,” Mr. Ramakrishnan said.
As per the 2017-18 figures, the unemployment rate in the State was 10.67% of the population. The national average for that year was 6.1%, Mr. Ramakrishnan said. According to the Minister, 35.63 lakh people were registered with the employment exchanges in the Sate. But this figure did not provide a correct picture of the unemployment rate. The government had asked the exchanges to organise a survey to determine how many of the registered individuals were genuinely jobless, he said.
