New Delhi: Over 25,000 individuals are set to take exams on January 6 and 7 for just 15 superintendent posts in the commercial taxes department in Karnataka’s Kalyana.

Though there is a large number of vacancies, a substantial number remain unfilled, leading to a huge rush for every recruitment drive.

According to the New Indian Express, over 2.56 lakh state government posts are vacant. However, any proposal to fill a large number of vacant posts falls through as the finance department is unable to give its nod, or agrees to a few posts due to financial constraints.

State departments face substantial staff shortages, including over 75,000 vacancies in education, 35,000 in health, and 22,000 in the home department. Other departments, like revenue, rural development, panchayat raj, animal husbandry, finance, and Schedule Caste welfare, also grapple with around 10,000 vacant posts each, the paper reported.

It may be noted that India’s unemployment rate reached a two-year high at 10.09% in November 2023, according to the latest Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) data. That figure represents a near-three percentage point increase from September 2023, when it was 7.09%.

The data also show that rural unemployment jumped from 6.2% to 10.82% and that the urban employment rate “eased slightly” to 8.44% in November.

Also read: Three Claims Of Government Economists About Jobs Put To The Test

C.S. Shadakshari, President of the Karnataka State Government Employees’ Association, pointed out the anomaly of overqualified applicants for positions like bill collectors and engineers and MBA graduates applying for roles requiring only graduation. “Last year, there was a notification for 10 drivers’ posts in the water resource department, for which 1.8 lakh people applied,” he added.

Post-Covid, there's a noticeable surge in government job applications, which has added to the challenge of filling vacancies, a senior official told the paper on condition of anonymity. “We are not able to fill the huge vacancies. If there are 100 vacancies in one department, we can fill hardly 10, as the finance department does not give clearance,” the official said.

Sometime earlier, the government had called for applications for government school teachers. “Though there are close to 50,000 vacancies, the finance department gave its nod only for 15,000, and over 1.3 lakh people wrote the exam,” the paper quoted the official as saying.

P. Guruswamy, an executive member of the Karnataka Government Secretariat Employees’ Association, said the scarcity of recruitment opportunities in both private and government sectors is failing to meet the rising demand from new graduates entering the job market each year.

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