Only 5% registered with Chandigarh employment exchange got placed in last 3 years

When it comes to employment generation or creation of jobs, the Regional Employment Exchange, Chandigarh, is becoming redundant as in the past three years it has been able to place only 5% of those registered with it.

Records available with HT show that of the 10,325 people who got themselves registered with the employment exchange in the last three years (2015 to 2017), only 1,860 received job notifications and out of those only 462 actually got placed. This is just 25% of the vacancies.

A youth, who got himself registered with the employment exchange, said on the condition of anonymity, “I registered with the employment authority two years ago for the post of a clerk. But so far, I have never got any calls from the office. In fact, I tried to contact them several times, but every time, they would ask me to wait.”

When contacted, Sanjeeda Beri, regional employment officer, Chandigarh, said, “As per the Supreme Court order, we cannot force an employer to recruit any person. Also, when there is a vacancy for a government job, it is advertised in newspapers as well. So people apply directly also.”

Set up around five decades back, the Regional Employment Exchange is situated in Sector-17, Chandigarh and claims to cater to the needs of the employers and applicants residing in the jurisdiction of Chandigarh. It caters to job in government as well as private sectors and jobs from peon to managerial level.

The main function of the office is to register applicants and sponsor them against notified vacancies; to provide vocational guidance and employment counselling to the job seekers and to collect information from the establishments in the organised sector under the Employment Market Information Programme of National Employment Service. There are around 35 employees in this office and it has a budget of Rs 2.12 crore per annual.