While the nation still struggles with job creation and employability the Labour Ministry recently launched a job pilot and assembled the job givers and job providers in Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh. An estimated 18,000 vacancies, mainly in the services sector were to be filled at this job fair. 

Small and medium-size firms are said to be a huge employer generator of the country and the ministry was able to rope in 29 MSMEs, including startups.  An estimated number of 18,000 vacancies were expected to be filled with this initiative. These vacancies were mainly in the services sector. 

As per media, 1,100 job seekers received on the spot offers. The collected resumes will first be scrutinized and subsequently, the final offers will be made.

Based on the final assessment of the pilot is made, the government can issue a directive to all its MPs to conduct similar 'melas' in their constituencies. 

Earlier in 2015 the pace of job creation was reported to be slow and fell to a six-year low with 135,000 new jobs being created. While in 2014 the number was 4, 21,000 and in 2013 it was 4, 19,000. 

To shorten the employment gap in 2015 the labor ministry had launched the National Career Service portal where over 3.87 crore candidates’ and 14.8 lakh establishments are registered.

While a lot of developments with regard to employment sector are reported every year, unemployment and lack of availability of jobs still remain to be a concern. 

This year, in October, Finance minister Arun Jaitley said in media that the government’s highest priority is to create new jobs for the millions of young people that are entering the workforce every year in India.

And Job fair can be a good medium to achieve this goal as it brings jobless youth and companies under a single platform. And to get small and medium-sized enterprises to participate in such job fairs adds more value.

“India has over a million new job seekers joining the labor market every year. So, SMEs are a really powerful engine for job creation,” said Annette Dixon, the World Bank's vice president for the South Asia Region, when she shared her views on India’s performance in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business global rankings in October. 

Around 540 job fairs were organized in 2016-17. And now the success of this job pilot in Bareilly may start a new wave of job creation across India.