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39 million job-seekers on government registers

The number of job-seekers registered with employment exchanges all over the country was about 39.2 million in April 1998, the Lok Sabha was told on Tuesday during question hour by Labour Minister S N Jatiya.

The total placement of the technically qualified during 1994 was 19.33 million and it was 6.78 million between January and June in 1995. The employment in the organised sector which was of the order of about 27.74 million on March 31, 1994 has gone up to approximately 28.24 million on March 31, 1997.

Interestingly, Sikkim is the only state in the country where there is no employment exchange.

The number of job-seekers - all of whom need not necessarily be unemployed - belonging to the minority communities on the life register of the employment exchanges as on December 31, 1994, was of the order of five million. About 307,000 job-seekers were sponsored during 1994 and about 18,300 placements were made.

In reply to another question, Jatiya said agencies registered under the Emigration Act 1983 are authorised to collect service charges ranging from Rs 2,000 to Rs 10,000 per person depending on the category of workers. But no service charges are allowed to be collected by the contractors registered under the Contract Labour (Abolition and Regulation) Act 1970 and the Inter-state Migrant Workmen (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act 1979.

The minister told another member that the standing labour committee's recommendation for enhancement of rate of interest on the corpus of family pension accumulated corpus had not been found feasible.

UNI