The economy is booming, but India’s youth crave government jobs

Crammed with dozens of other people in makeshift classrooms under tin roofs and with barely enough light and air, Kumar has spent years studying for a variety of exams, including the prestigious civil service exam He needed to get a job as a federal government bureaucrat. He also applied for a position in the provincial civil service and two other tests for lower-level government positions.

He has failed in 13 attempts to find work.

Kumar, a resident of Uttar Pradesh, the country’s most populous state, says he will keep trying to get a government job until he turns 32, three years before the deadline for appearing for a civil service exam.

“There is more security in government jobs“Kumar said. “If it happens in two or three years, the 10-year struggle will be worth it.”

According to government figures, 220 million people applied for federal jobs between 2014 and 2022, of whom 722,000 were selected. Many of those would have been repeat attempts, but still, tens of millions of young Indians seek government jobs each year even though the economy is booming and the private sector is expanding. The trend underscores the cultural and economic anxieties faced by many Indians. Despite living in the world’s fastest-growing major economy, many are grappling with an uncertain labor market where job opportunities, let alone lack of opportunities, are an issue. job securityare hard to come by. Many consider public employment to be more secure than private-sector jobs in the world’s most populous country. “If one person in the family gets a public job, the family feels they are secured for life,” said Zafar Baksh, who runs a training institute for those who test for such jobs.

In neighbouring Bangladesh, student protests against reserved places in government jobs killed more than 100 people last week.

Since 2014, India’s GDP has grown from $2 trillion to nearly $3.5 trillion in fiscal year 2023-24 (April-March) and is expected to expand by 7.2% in the current year.

Candidates say the government offers lifelong security, health benefits, pensions and housing, which they may not be able to get in private employmentFew will admit it, but many government jobs also offer the prospect of earning money on the black market.

Rising demand for prep classes has attracted big players and lessons have also moved online, said Baksh, who sees it as a lucrative, evergreen business.

“There will always be demand.”

THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH GOOD JOBS
Analysts cited discontent over job opportunities as a key reason why Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party failed to secure a majority on its own in the April-May general election and returned to power only with the support of allies.

Government data released this month showed 20 million new job opportunities were generated in India each year since 2017/18, but private economists said much of this was self-employment and temporary agricultural contracting rather than formal positions with regular salaries.

The government, which next week presents its first budget since the election, will likely boost job creation by providing tax incentives for new manufacturing facilities and encouraging local hiring in sectors such as defense, Nomura said in a note this month. But it will take time for these measures to generate jobs.

“It’s not just that there aren’t enough jobs available, but also that there aren’t enough jobs that pay well and offer job stability and other benefits,” said Rosa Abraham, an adjunct professor at the Centre for Sustainable Employment at Azim Premji University in Bengaluru.

For Pradeep Gupta, 22, who hopes to land a government job, working in the private sector is the “last option”.

“There is honour, job security and less pressure” in a government job, he said, speaking in the Uttar Pradesh city of Prayagraj, a thriving hub for prep schools.

Nearly 5 million students applied for 60,000 vacancies in the Uttar Pradesh police force earlier this year and an exam for the post of constable in central government security agencies received 4.7 million applicants for 26,000 posts.

Another program, which offers applicants the opportunity to access positions as delivery workers and drivers in government departments, attracted nearly 2.6 million applicants in 2023 for approximately 7,500 jobs.

At all levels of government, including the armed forces, schools, health services and the military, nearly 6 million jobs remain vacant, India’s main opposition party, the Indian National Congress, has estimated.

An email sent to the federal government requesting data on government jobs and vacancies received no response.

GOOD DEAL
For Maroof Ahmed, who has been running a preparatory school in Prayagraj since 2014, this has meant good business.

Currently, he says, his academy has five branches, serving between 25,000 and 30,000 students a year through physical and online classes.

Success rates, or those who get jobs, are low, around 5-10%, but demand remains high, he said.

There was no data available on the number of such training institutes across the country as much of the industry is informal and unorganised.

The clamor for government jobs has as much to do with attitudes toward work as it does with the state of India’s labor market, said Rituparna Chakraborty, co-founder of staffing firm TeamLease Services.

“The private sector is based on meritocracy and responds to economic fluctuations,” he said. “In the public sector, once you get a job, regardless of your performance, your future is assured.”