Patna: Akhil Kumar (name changed) graduated in civil engineering from a Bengaluru-based institute in 2015. For eight years, he struggled to find a job. That search ended this year after he found a job with a private company. He is happy that unemployment has become a big poll issue across the country and Bihar. The seed was sown during the 2020 Bihar assembly elections. RJD leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav made unemployment a poll issue. During election rallies, Tejashwi promised to give 10 lakh jobs to the unemployed if the Grand Alliance formed the government in the state. This resonated with the youths. The BJP also promised to give 10 lakh government jobs.In his Independence Day speech in 2022, chief minister Nitish Kumar promised to give 10 lakh jobs and create 20 lakh work opportunities. In the next 17 months, as many as 4 lakh government jobs were given before Nitish returned to the NDA fold.With Lok Sabha elections, all parties are now promising jobs. As per the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) report, conducted nationally between July 2022 and June 2023, Bihar’s UR (ratio of unemployed persons to the total number of employed and unemployed persons) is one percentage below the national average. The UR in rural Bihar is 4%, while it is 8.2% in urban areas. Overall, the state’s UR is 4.3% against the national average of 3.4%.As per the PLFS report, the percentage of wage/salary earner is only 9.1% against the national average of 23.8%.The state’s dependence on primary (agriculture) sector for work opportunities is 48.6%, with 24.4% in the secondary sector, and 26.4% in the tertiary (services) sector.
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