Amid May Day celebrations, here’s a wake-up call from the government’s employment exchanges. A recent report on these exchanges in Delhi shows that in the last five years, only 902 of the 5 lakh candidates who registered have got jobs through them. The 902 placements were made at a total cost of Rs 20 crore—in other words, each placement cost the government Rs 2.3 lakh.

The report on the State of Governance in Delhi, by the Centre for Civil Society, covers the 20 employment exchanges in Delhi from the period 2000 to 2004. The 250 government officials who work in these exchanges made 123 placements in 2000, followed by 48 in 2001. The number rose to 138 in 2002, but after a spike in 2003 to 426, placements fell to 167 in 2004. On an average, every staff member barely managed one placement a year.

The blame, of course, doesn’t lie with the staff. In an era where government enterprises manage their own recruitment work, there is little that comes the way of employment exchanges. The exchanges are not meant to cater to the private sector.

The Directorate of Employment that runs these exchanges was initially set up at the end of the Second World War, in July 1945, to resettle returning soldiers. They mainly tapped public sector undertakings.

But today the Staff Selection Commission, the Railways Recruitment Board, the Banking Service Commission and other recruiting agencies do the job for PSUs. Only stray cases of lower-level jobs are routed through these exchanges.

... contd.