MP Sees Nearly 20-fold Jump in Unemployment Registration This Year, Reveals Govt Data

Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh has witnessed a 19-fold jump in unemployment registration in the last two months compared to 2020. Between January 1 and February 25 this year, 7,73,489 unemployed persons have registered with the State Employment Exchange while 41, 276 people have registered during the same period in 2020.

As many as 5.12 lakh unemployed registered in January and 2.60 lakh people till February 25 of the current year. Total 5.12 lakh people who had registered themselves previous year, while 8.45 lakh people have registered unemployed in 2019, according to Madhya Pradesh Employment Exchange website.

This comes after the Covid-19 outbreak and the subsequent nationwide lockdown from March 25, 2020 that took away jobs of close to 10.9 million people. The lockdown has deepened the already looming job crisis in India.

Govt jobs given in the last five years

Failing to provide enough jobs in the last seven years of the regime, the unemployed took to Twitter and held the Modi-led Union government accountable for the job crisis as the PM had promised 2 crore jobs each year. The demand for employment trended on Twitter with the hashtag #ModiJobDo.

Of the 7.73 lakh unemployed who have registered themselves with the Employment Exchange, close to 30% are women. As far as the categories of the unemployed are concerned, 3.1 lakh belongs to Other Backward Class, while 1.87 lakh belongs to the general category and close to 2.65 lakh unemployed are from the Schedule Tribe and Scheduled Caste, the data reveals.

According to the State Economic Survey which was tabled in the assembly on Monday (March 1) in the House, more than 21.5 lakh unemployed registered with the government are literate, out of total 26.82 lakh people.

As per the data available on the Rojgar Portal, Gwalior topped in the unemployed registration chart with 35,443 people, followed by Morena with 32,236 registered unemployed, while Rewa and Indore came to third and four position with over 29,000 registrations each.

Registration data of unemployment in Madhya Pradesh in 2021. (Source: MP Rojgar Portal, Directorate of Employment)

The data further reveals that the government had held 1,371 job fairs from 2015 to 2019 in a bid to provide jobs to the registered unemployed and 4,07,511 people have got in private companies while 996 people got in the government sector between 2015 and 2019.

Akshay Hunka, Social Activist, who runs Berozgar Sena and constantly raises the issue of unemployment in the state, said that the state government has no consolidated data of unemployed youths because providing employment was never in its agenda.

"Those who register themselves on the website are counted as unemployed. The government doesn't consider them as unemployed. Nevertheless, more than 70% of the youth population in the state are unemployed as per my assumption," Hunka said.

He insisted that just like the government introduced MGNREGA Scheme for labourers, a policy on the similar lines should be framed for the literate youths to provide a fixed employment.