A lot of people in India believe that a government job is a job and everything else is work, Commerce & Industry Minister Piyush Goyal has said.

“Degree holders applying for a peon’s job relates to very traditional thinking where people saw job security in a government job,” Goyal said responding to a question on the same raised at a press briefing in Washington DC on Thursday.

While the narrative and young men and women’s thinking is changing with higher levels of education and degrees and private sector jobs, there is still a very large section which would like to apply for a government job as and when the opportunity comes, the Minister said.

Some think that in a government job,  irrespective of work or no work you are secure. “So merit was never their priority. Just secure job is a priority,” he said.

There are also many people who intrinsically want to be in the government, the Minister said, adding that there was nothing wrong in that. 

There are also some who think if they get a government job, it will be good for marriage prospects, Goyal said. The thinking will change.

It was possible that there may be people who may already be in a private job when they apply for government jobs, the Minister pointed out.

In India, across many States, candidates applying for routine government jobs, such as peon, watchman, gardener, and others, often have high educational qualification such as graduation, post-graduation and even PhDs.

Unemployment rate

Goyal said that unemployment rate has been continuously declining in India and was at 3.2 per cent in 2022-23. This is a decrease from 6.1 per cent for males and 5.6 per cent for females in 2017-18. “So it (unemployment) is a continuously decreasing figure. But everybody has a choice. Whether they want to consider their work as a job or they want to consider only a government job,” he said. Some senior political leaders are also in the narrative, when they only consider government as a job, the Minister said.

Goyal was on a four-day visit to the US, from September 30 to October 3, where he co-chaired the India-USA CEO Forum with US Secretary for Commerce Gina Raimondo and also met US Trade Representative Katherine Tai.

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