Decrease in Government Jobs and Rise of Privatization

Over years, government hiring has decreased on multiple levels. The trend is expected to continue because departments at the Union government level and even at state levels are reducing the permanent positions and moving towards contractual employment.

The hiring in government jobs has reached its lowest in at least three fiscal years 2020-21. While the central government hired 27 per cent fewer people, states hired 21 per cent lesser people, as per the payroll data of the National Pension System (NPS).

The central government hired almost 119,000 people on permanent rolls in FY20, however, it dropped to 87,423 in FY21. Similarly, states hired 389,052 people in FY21, a drop of nearly 107,000 from the year before.

On the contrary, the private sector employment has increased significantly over the years and has certainly given a major boost to India’s GDP. The private sector is acting as a chief agent in creating employment, providing funds, building competitiveness and driving innovation which are the key instruments for growth.

In the past few years, India has continued to grow steadily, cementing its name amongst world’s fastest growing economies, and experts have predicted that Indian economy is going to maintain real GDP growth of 9 per cent both in FY22 and in FY23, despite the uncertainty triggered by the Omicron variant.

In-spite of huge progress of public sector, the private sector played a tremendous role to boost Indian economy and opened plethora of opportunities since the economy was opened in 1991. Prem Chand, general secretary, Indian Public Service Employees Federation (IPSEF) said that now government is focusing on hiring multi-tasking contract workers instead of permanent employees.

There can be two possibilities that why the government is pushing the private sector for more employment. The government wants to strengthen private sector, and secondly, they want to reduce people’s dependency on government jobs as many years are wasted in the preparation.

On the other hand, private sector has created massive livelihood in tier-1 and tier-2 cities in India in the past few years which has increased people’s interest in private sector. Companies like Infosys, and TCS provide employment, job security and a lot of perks to its employees.

Through privatization, country also drives investments and fosters entrepreneurship, and innovation. Since government is now inviting MNC’s by offering them PLI, this will give a major boost to private sector employment. The government is also improving the quality of roads and highways, airports, industrial parks and emphasizing on developing the skills of the people to make India more resourceful.

Apart from that, with the advent of fourth Industrial Revolution, India is on the cusp of a technological transformation that could change the fortune of manufacturing and industrial production in the country.

The private sector holds the power to harness and use technology to unleash greater prosperity for the nation. In the coming years, it is predicted that government will further reduce the jobs in public sector in order to foster the private sector and improve its share in Indian economy.