Current job vacancies listed on the government's National Career Service (NCS) portal fell 62% month-on-month to 196,773 in June 2026, marking the lowest level in 30 months, according to updated data on the NCS dashboard. The figure declined from 517,431 in May, when it had already fallen 14.6% from the previous month. The June figure was also 72% lower than a year earlier, when 692,942 current vacancies were recorded, as reported by Business Standard. This decline reflects broader labor market trends where employers are maintaining current staff rather than expanding hiring, creating what experts describe as a stasis environment with minimal job creation.
The June print was the lowest since January 2024, when it was 2,676. Since then, vacancies had remained above 200,000 up until June this year. Active vacancies on the portal had peaked in October 2024 at 1.73 million. Launched in July 2015, the National Career Service is a government-run employment and career services platform under the Ministry of Labour and Employment, providing a single digital platform connecting jobseekers with employers while offering career counselling and job matching services.
Despite the decline in vacancies, active employers more than doubled to 1.54 million in June from 702,000 in May. However, the June figure was still 55% lower than the 3.43 million active employers recorded a year earlier. Active jobseekers remained broadly stable month-on-month, at 4,005 in June against 3,773 in May, but was down 97% from 135,913 a year earlier, as reported by Business Standard. The current environment shows employers maintaining workforce stability rather than actively expanding, with the primary challenge being securing new employment as the number of resumes and applications far outweighs open listings.
Vinoj Abraham, professor at the Centre for Development Studies, suggested the fall could partly reflect the drying up of older vacancies and listings that had previously been integrated into the portal. "Till two to three years ago, vacancies had been loading up on the portal where jobs listed on multiple other sources and past vacancies got integrated on NCS," he explained. Bornali Bhandari from the National Council of Applied Economic Research noted the distinction between employers registering on NCS and actually posting vacancies, stating that employers might be digitising and registering on these portals but not hiring. The current data reflects this trend where employers are maintaining current staff rather than expanding workforce.
The labour ministry stated that NCS had mobilised over 10 crore vacancies since inception, with 17.68 lakh active vacancies as of July 15, 2026. However, NCS does not report how many of the vacancies listed on the portal ultimately result in placements, so the data do not provide a measure of actual hiring. A parliamentary standing committee on labour had flagged this gap in its 2026 report and asked the ministry to track and report actual placements through NCS, including data by year, sector and state.
