Employment: Jobseekers’ willingness to work in a particular field of job is found to be one of the main indicators defining unemployment in the country.

The mismatch of demand and supply in the current job market is being fuelled by the readiness of jobseekers to work in a given environment.

Department of Employment’s officiating director general, Ugyen Tenzin, said that jobseekers value their choice of work more than just getting employed. “We have many job opportunities both within and outside the country to gainfully employ our youth. Somehow, people are not grabbing the opportunities.”

Ugyen Tenzin said that of the total 350 training and employment slots announced by the labour ministry recently, only 60 people have been placed for the programme.

A college of engineering and technology in India had announced vacancies for 100 graduates in Finance and Accounting, another 100 for Information and Technology, 25 each for Electrical and Electronics Engineering and Electronics and Communication Engineering and 100 general graduates for training and employment.

Ugyen Tenzin said that 515 graduates with different backgrounds had registered for the programme. However, during the briefing sessions, only 200 graduates attended. The number further reduced to 130 during the selection session. Finally, only 60 were placed for the programme at the end.

“This has become very confusing. On the one hand people say they are looking for jobs, but when opportunities are provided, they fail to show interest,” said Ugyen Tenzin. “If this continues, graduates will have difficult time getting a job as the competition grows every year.”

As of February 29, a total of 25,300 jobseekers have registered with the ministry’s online job portal system. The ministry announced 20,480 vacancies from July 1, 2014 till February 29.

Kesang Dema (name changed), a 2014 graduate from Gaeddu College of Business Studies is still looking for a “decent” job of her choice. The 25-year old, who studied Bachelors of Business Administration, said that the jobs announced by the ministry do not match their qualification.

“All the vacancies announced are for class XII pass-outs but they have classified the job for graduates,” she said. “How can they expect a graduate to do a class XII’s job? I would wait for a decent job rather than hurry and spoil my chances.”

Another graduate from PSNA College of Engineering and Technology, India said that the vacancies announced are all in private companies where the salary is comparatively less.

The ministry has employed 13,775 jobseekers from the total registered in the job portal system in various organisations. 11,525 were still unemployed as of February 29.

However, Ugyen Tenzin said that the number of unemployed should be much less. “People who are now employed are also still reflected as jobseekers in our system because they have not updated their status on job portal system,” he said. “Once the job portal system is cleaned and updated, the number should come down to 6,000 to 7,000.”

Officials urged those who are registered with the system to update their employment status if they are employed.

According to Labour Force Survey 2014, of the total 348,742 labour force in the country, 339,569 were employed in various sectors of the country.

Younten Tshedup