The National Pension System (NPS) data reveals hiring for government jobs by the central and the state governments fell to a three-year low for the Financial Year 2020-2021. The central government hired 27 percent lower, while states hired 21 percent lower in financial year 21 (FY21).

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According to a Mint report, the central government hired nearly 119,000 people on its permanent rolls in FY20 while the numbers dropped to 87,423 in FY21. For the states, it was a drop of 107,000 with only 389,052 people in FY21. The previous year saw nearly 496,052 people being hired across all states of India.

India’s GDP has contracted 24.4 percent and 7.3 percent, respectively, in the first two quarters of FY21. It expanded by 0.4 percent in the third quarter with ICRA forecasting a 2 percent growth for the fourth quarter. The contractions are due to the pandemic that has taken a toll not only in India but worldwide.

Apart from governments going easy on hiring, the private sector too has considerably slowed and estimates predict FY22 may be sluggish in terms of growth and expansion.

According to a report by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), the second wave knocked off nearly 7.35 million jobs in April. In terms of employees, both salaried and non-salaried, it dropped from 398.14 million in March to 390.79 million in April. This was the third month that a drop has been registered. Outsourcing and contract employment has led to the lower hiring for government jobs thus reducing the employee costs for the government.

First Published:May 26, 2021 10:21 PM IST