The number of active job vacancies posted on the National Career Service (NCS) portal of the Ministry of Labour and Employment fell to a 16-month low of 15 lakh in February, down from 23.7 lakh in January.
The count of active jobs in February was the lowest since October 2024, when it was 14.12 lakh, according to the NCS performance dashboard.
In contrast, the number of active employers reached a five-month high of 1.53 lakh in February, up from 71,844 in January, and was the highest since September 2025 when it was 1.6 lakh.
“There is a major difference between firms registering on the portal and firms actually posting jobs. These numbers on the NCS portal show that employers might be digitising and registering on these portals, but they are not hiring,” said Bornali Bhandari, professor at National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER).
The NCS portal is a government-run online employment platform operated by the labour ministry that connects jobseekers with employers across sectors. It aggregates vacancies posted directly by companies as well as listings sourced from partner job portals and government employment exchanges.
In the current financial year 2025-26 (FY26), job postings on the portal peaked in June 2025 with 99.3 lakh postings, but the number has been steadily falling since then.
“In India, many firms do not advertise vacancies formally but hire through their network of people. This is especially true for many smaller firms,” Bhandari added.
Government data shows that most vacancies on the NCS portal come from the services sector — particularly finance and insurance — followed by logistics, operations support, information technology (IT), and manufacturing.
A majority (68 per cent) of the employers are from service activities, followed by the manufacturing sector (26 per cent), according to a 2023 release by the labour ministry. Of this, 51 per cent were in the finance and insurance sector, and 13 per cent in the transport and storage sector.
Apart from job postings, the portal also shows the number of active job seekers and active employers. While the number of employers rose to a five-month high in February, the number of jobseekers fell to 5.45 lakh, down from 6.73 lakh in January.
The number of men in total vacancies mobilised on the portal was 5.25 million, while the number for women was only 8.2 lakh as of November 15, 2024, according to a written reply by the labour ministry in the Lok Sabha.
On the NCS portal, a jobseeker’s registration is typically treated as active for about six months. If the user does not log in, renew, or update their profile during this period, the account may be marked inactive. As a result, the person may no longer be counted among the portal’s active jobseekers.
“While it may be that the number of jobseekers fell due to people getting hired, it is generally observed in India’s case that this happens because people end up leaving the job market. When people struggle to find work for long periods, some stop actively searching for jobs, even though they may still be willing to work if an opportunity comes up. But due to this they are considered to be ‘out of the workforce’ in that period,” Bhandari said.
The NCS portal also lists overseas vacancies, with the highest number of vacancies mobilised in the UAE, Israel, and Saudi Arabia as on November, 2024. These vacancies were the highest in sectors like civil and construction works, followed by hotels, food services, catering, and health.