One of the biggest exchanges in the country, the DDE has a network of nine district exchanges and five zonal offices all of them falling under Delhi government's directorate of employment, which handles the network and works with a total staff of 250.
The success rate of exchange, however, is almost next to nothing, a lowly 0.5 per cent, which is less than the national average, says K C Aggarwal, Joint Director, DDE.
On the contrary, a leading online job website, Timesjobs.com, claims they have a database of 6.5 million job seekers and the success rate of giving placement in a month is 10-15 per cent. "More than 20,000 recruiters visit our resume pool daily to choose the best suitable candidate," says Rajat Gandhi, head of marketing, Timesjobs.com.
To track Employment Exchange in Delhi is itself a full time job! Even those who live in the vicinity are not aware of its existence. 'Rozgar Karyalaya' for them sounds more familiar. At the Pusa Road Exchange, youth and a few school children taking vocational classes are found seeking to try their luck. There are no queues and no huddles of people and officials are surprisingly overenthusiastic to help and provide counseling to aspirants.
Officials at DDE claim that when both the private sector and various public sector recruitment agencies are actively
providing the services to applicants, it has been increasingly difficult for a jobseeker to find employment through the exchange.
"At a time, when both the private sector and government enterprises manage their own recruitment work, there is little that comes the way of employment exchange. Earlier our prime work was to make placements with public sector undertakings. But now, the staff selection commission, the railway recruitment board and other recruiting agencies do the job for PSUs," says Aggarwal.
Only the lower level jobs come the way for employment exchange, he says adding that specific data on placements made by all exchanges in Delhi is not available.
It is rarely seen somebody getting a job through employment exchanges with most of the government job vacancies are published by advertisements in the newspapers and magazines or through different channels.
"It's not like we are not doing our work. But where are the jobs? Most of the jobs are in industrial areas like Gurgaon, Faridabad and Noida and we don't have an access to them but if they approach us we are ready to help them with the available database," says Aggarwal.
According to the last available data at the ministry of labour, over 2.87 crore job seekers (in the age group of 15-29), all of whom may not be necessarily unemployed are registered with employment exchanges in the country with 4,83,700 candidates registered in Delhi alone.
Jobs have 'dried up' at the exchange but there are still some who visit these Employment Exchanges on a regular basis to know about their marginal chances in the job market.
