By IANS
New Delhi : Gujarat topped in providing jobs – 178,346 – in the private and public sectors through employment exchanges in 2007, parliament was informed Wednesday.
Tamil Nadu with 23,757 jobs came second, Labour and Employment Minister Oscar Fernandes informed the Rajya Sabha.
In all, 263,540 people secured jobs through different employment exchanges across the country, he said in a written reply.
The other major states that provided jobs to over 5,000 registered applicants in 2007 were Kerala (10,962), Maharashtra (8,207) and West Bengal (5,304). The employment exchanges in Rajasthan gave jobs to 4,544 applicants.
There are around 1,000 government-run employment exchanges in India helping people to find suitable jobs and imparting vocational guidance to shape their careers.
According to the Employment Exchange Statistics 2006, there were around 39 million job seekers registered with the employment exchanges as on Dec 31, 2005 as against 40 million on Dec 31, 2004.
Fernandes said that the placements effected through employment exchanges in 2007 in Andhra Pradesh were 1,298, Bihar 129, Chhattisgarh 129, Delhi 105, Haryana 3,686, Himachal Pradesh 681, Jharkhand 1,833, Karnataka 1,651, Orissa 3,756, Punjab 3,021, Uttaranchal 3,803 and Uttar Pradesh 3,290.
In the northeast, 382 applicants got jobs through the exchanges in Assam. Manipur gave jobs to 35 people, Meghalaya to 17, Mizoram to 285, Nagaland to 146 and Tripura to 410 applicants.
Employment exchanges in union territories provided more placements: 543 in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, 172 in Chandigarh and 228 in Puducherry.