Urgent Need to Address Rising Unemployment of Punjabis in Punjab
The latest Labour Force Survey of October-December 2025 by the Centre, outlines the employment situation in Punjab. It mentions that it has worsened with rising unemployment in the age group of 15-29 years and above, though the unemployment figure has come down at the national level and in neighbouring Haryana and Himachal Pradesh. According to this government survey, Punjab's unemployment rate was 19.3% for both rural and urban areas, up from 18.9% in the previous July-September quarter. This was higher than the all-India average of 14.3%, which was lower than 14.8% in the previous quarter. In rural Punjab, youth unemployment was 22.5%, male unemployment was 19.9% and female unemployment was 30.7%. This is quite worrisome.
In urban areas, the unemployment rate was 14.8%, 12.5% for men and 24.3% for women. For rural and urban areas, male unemployment in Punjab was 16.7%, while female unemployment was 28.4%, highlighting a clear gender gap. In comparison, Haryana’s overall youth unemployment rate declined to 12.4% from 15.4% in the previous quarter. In rural areas, unemployment was 11.9%, while in urban areas it was 12.8%. In urban Haryana, female unemployment was 16.8%, while it was 12.1% for men.
At the national level, rural youth unemployment was 12.6%, while urban youth unemployment was 18.0%. Urban female unemployment was 25.2%, while it was 15.7% for men.
In the ‘15 years and above’ category, Punjab’s overall unemployment rate increased from 6.5% to 7% in the last quarter, while the all-India average was 4.8%, down from 5.2%. Unemployment in rural Punjab was 7.9%, with 7.2% for men and 10.2% for women. Urban unemployment was lower at 5.6%, with 5.2% for men and 7.3% for women.
The unemployment rate in Punjab is very high and this is a cause for great concern due to which either there are no required jobs, or the required jobs go to outsiders instead of Punjabis, whereas Punjabis are considered to be excellent workers all over the world. Both these aspects are worth examining in depth which I do from my own experience.
My experience in this regard vividly described the malice. When I was the Vice President HR of EMTEX Group of Companies, it was my responsibility to manage and supervise all the workers, recruit them, discipline them and also give them training. I remember that on the orders of the President, I recruited and took ten workers from Punjab, especially for the supervisory area of security. As soon as these were joined there was a hue and cry among the workers and they went on strike because there was a special law in force that 80% of the workers should be from Maharashtra. Finally, I had to send those workers back, which caused a lot of embarrassment for me. There is a written law there that 80% of the workers in the state industry should be from Maharashtra which is outlined here:
(Providing Priority in employment to minimum 80% local persons in all Micro, Small, Medium, Large & Mega Industrial Enterprises. Government of Maharashtra Industry, Energy & Labour Department, Government Resolution No. ELP-2008/C.No.93/Ind-6, Mantralaya, Mumbai 400 032. Date: 17th November, 2008. Read: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)) ……. Government of Maharashtra has a policy in place to ensure that local persons of the State get their due share in gainful employment arising from the growth in industrial activity. Accordingly, all industrial enterprises are expected to ensure that 50% of all supervisory staff, and 80% of all employees (including supervisory staff) are local persons, and also that the Head of the Human Resources / In charge of the recruitment is a person with knowledge of Marathi.)
The second problem came when I tried to do my work in English or Hindi. They insisted that all this work should be done in Marathi. I knew very little Marathi, but I learned it with hard work and started writing and speaking in Marathi.
When I left Maharashtra and became the President HR of the top group of Companies in Punjab, these two matters encroached in my mind. One is that 80% of the jobs should be done by Punjabis and all the supervisors should be able to speak Punjabi. But to my surprise I found more than 80% of the workers here were from outside states in most of the major industries and the work was also done in English or Hindi. Punjabi had nearly nil in these industries. I narrated my experiences in Maharashtra to the owners of the companies, but it all went into dustbin. From thes companies I joined as a registrar in SLIET Longowal, a government institution that later became a university. Being a central institution, the question of Punjabi did not arise there, nor did it make sense to recruit 80% of the workers from Punjab because the central Government had complete control over that institution where every work was done in English or Hindi, even though the spoken language at the grassroots level was Punjabi. But in this, the workers including professors and other officers were also recruited from all over India, so even the spoken language in the officer class was not Punjabi.
While serving there, I got the opportunity to attend functions of some famous schools and colleges and was very surprised to see that Hindi or English was taught first in almost all DAV and Christian schools. I was even more surprised when in some institutions, students were punished for speaking Punjabi. That is why the number of Punjabi speakers in Punjab, which was 2.83% in the entire India in 2001, has come down to 2.74% in 2011. A few days ago, I went to Punjabi Administrative Complex in Chandigarh and saw that most of our top officers were Hindi/English speakers. Many of the office workers were also from outside states. It is natural that they would not favour developing jobs for Punjabis and Punjabi language in the state.
Ludhiana is the hub of factories. When I went to some factories here, I was surprised that 80% of the workers and supervisors are migrant workers. When I talked about the fact that eighty percent of the jobs for Punjabis and the education and the workers and supervisors being Punjabis, even Punjabi entrepreneurs would ignore it. In Maharashtra, a new order has come just yesterday that 'Marathi is mandatory for all commercial passenger vehicle drivers: Chief Minister of Maharashtra (Source: PTI 27 April 2026) Can't we ensure Punjabi is mandatory in educational institutions and on all boards. Can't we make it mandatory to appoint 80% Punjabis in government and non-government jobs like Maharashtra?
There is now a strong need for causing awareness that the only way to stop the increasing unemployment is to keep 80% of the jobs for Punjabis like Maharashtra and Punjabi should be made mandatory in every institution.
When I went to some factories here, I was surprised that 80% of the workers and supervisors are migrant workers from Hindi speaking states and Punjabi is rarely used. This affects the unemployment among Punjabi youth and use of Punjabi is restricted. When I talked about the fact that in Maharashtra, and vouched for eighty percent of the jobs for Punjabis workers and supervisors; I found Punjabi entrepreneur ignoring it stating that migrant workers are available at cheaper rates and are more docile. These entrepreneurs ignore the better education, health and work capacity of Punjabis further and ignoring the interests of their own state persons in jobs causing unemployment among Punjab.
I explained them that in Maharashtra it is compulsory for the industry to employ 80% workers and supervisors from their states and showed them the letters written by Maharashtra Government. This letter clearly stated that 80% workers and 50% supervisors have to be from Maharashtra in their state industry. But it all caused no effect since their own monetary benefits weighed more than the benefits of the state.
The matter was also taken up at the Government level stating that the only way the only way to stop the increasing unemployment is to keep 80% of the jobs for Punjabis like Maharashtra and make Punjabi mandatory in every institution. In Maharashtra, a new order has come out just yesterday that 'Marathi is mandatory for all commercial passenger vehicle drivers: Chief Minister Maharashtra (Source: PTI 27 April 2026). Can't we ensure Punjabi mandatory in educational institutions and on all boards. Can't we make it mandatory to appoint 80% Punjabis in government and non-government jobs like Maharashtra?
These two things were not having any effect here, so I started writing about it in newspapers and also started sending memorandums to the government about it continuously. Some other colleagues also joined and the effect of which was that when the Mann government came, Punjabi was declared a mandatory language in the whole of Punjab and Punjabi started being used on every shop and house where there was no writing in Punjabi. But surprisingly, this law was not implemented in offices nor in the whole of Punjab. Can Punjab learn anything from Maharashtra because in Punjab, Punjabi is not being fully respected and neither are the youth of Punjab getting jobs. According to the survey done now, there are lakhs of unemployed people in Punjab and the government is responsible for this unemployment and neglect of Punjabi. The government could not achieve its goal by promising to provide jobs and by promising to implement Punjabi, which is a matter of great sorrow. If 80% of jobs are not given to Punjabis in Punjab, then a campaign will be needed because the problem is that the big officers who implement the orders are not from Punjab but mostly from outside who emphasize more on Hindi and English and they also get orders from Delhi. Where the language is Hindi and the party that is ruling Punjab also has a Hindi background. That is why Punjabi is being neglected continuously. Punjabis will have to think for themselves whether they want to implement Punjabi completely or not and if 80% of jobs like Maharashtra are in other states, will they be implemented in Punjab or not, will Punjabis continue to be pushed on the streets and their jobs will be taken by people from outside states.
