The number of employment offers given through job fairs organised by the Labour and Employment Ministry decreased from 86,822 in 2019-2020 to 31,727 in 2020-2021, according to the Ministry’s data provided to the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday.
To a question by Biju Janata Dal MP Amar Patnaik, Minister of State for Labour and Employment Rameswar Teli ’s written reply said the number of active job-seekers registered with the National Career Service portal had increased from 1.03 crore in 2019-2020 to 1.04 crore in 2020-2021.
“Notifying final hiring figures is not a mandatory requirement on NCS portal. However, till July 18, 2021, 86.13 lakh vacancies have been mobilised on NCS since the launch of the portal on 20-07-2015 including the vacancies in public and private sector. (sic),” the reply said.
The data showed that of the 31,727 candidates given final offer letters in 2020-2021, 28,227 were from Uttar Pradesh. Similarly, about half the offers given in 2019-2020 came from U.P. (41,603). In 2018-2019, 72,539 job offers were handed out through the fairs, of which 31,077 were in Gujarat.
To a question by BJP MP Vikas Mahatme on bonded labour during the pandemic, the Ministry said there had been no real change.
No discernible change
“From the reports available from the State governments, no discernible change in the prevalence of bonded labour due to the pandemic is observed. However, keeping in view the challenges posed by the successive waves of the pandemic, all State/UT governments have been directed to prepare a State Action Plan for preventing and rehabilitating victims of bonded labour and labour trafficking.”
However, to a question by BJP MP Neeraj Shekhar, Mr. Teli provided data on the number of bonded labour released and rehabilitated, which showed an increase from 320 in 2020-2021 to 1,174 in 2021-2022 so far.
