Youth in India prefer a government job and the security attached to it, shows survey

There’s a growing preference for government jobs in Indian cities, a trend that clearly indicates young Indians are prioritising job security over rapid career growth, promised by most private sector employers. A decreasing income differential between public and private sector jobs, particularly at the entry-level, is seen as fuelling the abovementioned trend. [caption id=“attachment_4323639” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. News18[/caption] Through August, some 2.4 crore job aspirants will give online recruitment tests that seek to fill some 1,20,000 vacancies in the Indian Railways (IR), according to a government notification. The railway recruitment drive seeks to appoint assistant loco pilots (ALPs), technicians and other staffers. The third category of jobs is typically reserved for diploma holders and school pass outs. Meanwhile, in Karnataka, engineering graduates are reportedly chasing vacancies at the Indian armed forces and at state-run defence equipment makers, reported The New Indian Express. Professor KN Balasubramanya Murthy, Vice-Chancellor, PES University, told The New Indian Express: “Although there were offers from the public sector earlier too, now students have a better understanding about these opportunities. The work environment and job profiles in these companies are good too.” Data from two rounds of national youth surveys, conducted by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies’ (CSDS) Lokniti research programme, has revealed that the attraction of a government job has not logged any decline over the last 10 years, reported the Mint. The share of youth who prefer a government job grew marginally to 65 percent in 2016. Meanwhile, the share of youth who prefer a private sector job nearly halved to seven percent between the two rounds of the survey, conducted in 2016 and 2007. Furthermore, the share of those looking to dabble in entrepreneurship has risen slightly to 19 percent over the same period, the Mint report added. The 2016 and 2007 surveys polled 6,122 and 5,513 people respectively.