Employment exchange registrations yet to reach the pre-pandemic levels

Despite a 55 per cent increase in the number of jobseekers registering in 2021 on the employment exchanges across the country, the total number of jobseekers getting registered on the employment exchanges is yet to reach the pre - pandemic level, the data collated from 1005 employment exchanges across the country and released by Labour Ministry last week shows.

Around 32.24 lakh jobseekers got registered on the employment exchanges during 2021, whereas only 20.7 lakh jobseekers were registered in 2020 pandemic year, which was significantly lower than 34.5 lakh registrations in 2019. 

Out of the total registered job seekers in 2021, around 18.97 lakh job seekers were men and 13.27 lakh were women.

However, there was a significant increase in the number of vacancies listed on the exchanges, as around 8.2 lakh vacancies were reported in 2021, which is highest since 2016. Also, the placements were recorded at 4.9 lakh in 2021, which is the highest in the last decade. 

The highest number of jobseekers registered during 2021 were in Tamil Nadu (8.6 lakh) followed by Kerala (3.3 lakh), Uttar Pradesh (3.2 lakh) and Gujarat (3.2 lakh). During the year 2021, 3.4 lakh vacancies were notified by Gujarat which was the highest among all State/UTs followed by Maharashtra with 3.3 lakh.

The number of educated jobseekers registering on the exchanges more than doubled from 15.3 lakh in 2020 to 31 lakh in 2021.

During the year 2021, Gujarat has placed 2.7 lakh jobseekers that was the highest among all State/UTs  followed by Maharashtra with 1.7 lakh placements.

The aggregate number of jobseekers on the live register also increased from 428.2 lakh in 2020 to 440.7 lakh in 2021. The largest number of jobseekers on live register during the year 2021 were in West Bengal (77.6 lakh), Tamil Nadu (67.7 lakh) and Kerala (49.3 lakh).