UPSC Jobs: Vacant posts advertised dropped by over 50% in past decade

NEW DELHI: The number of vacancies advertised by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) has fallen by more than 50 percent since 2013-14, while the central government continued to grapple with a shortage of workforce.

The decline in vacancies advertised by UPSC overall was revealed in the written reply by the minister of state for personnel, Jitendra Singh, submitted on Wednesday. UPSC is the apex body responsible for conducting the UPSC civil services examination and recruitment for other ‘group A’ positions under the Government of India including administrative (IAS), police (IPS), and foreign service (IFS) officers.

Singh’s reply showed that in 2021-22 only 5,153 vacancies were advertised by the commission as opposed to 11,526 in 2013-14, a decrease of 54 percent. The number of vacancies witnessed a consistently sharp decline, from 8,347 vacancies in 2014-15 to 5,913 in 2019-20.

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UPSC CSE and vacancies

The vacancies dropped to the lowest ever in the past decade in 2020-2021 with only 4,997 advertised vacancies. In the same year, 4,214 candidates were shortlisted for various positions, the government data shows.

UPSC Vacancies

Source: Government of India

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Apart from fewer vacancies, the number of candidates recommended by the commission shows a gap between vacancies and recruitment. The number of shortlisted candidates is always lower than the vacancies released by the government. During the last five years, the UPSC has advertised 27,764 posts and recruited 24,836 candidates, the official data shows.

According to statistics, a total of 8, 852 candidates were recommended by the UPSC in 2013-14; which dropped to 4, 399 in 2018-19 against 5,207 vacancies. Similarly, the number of candidates shortlisted came further down to 4,214 in 2020-21 and 4,119 in 2021-22. However, it saw a minor spike in 2019 at 5, 230 candidates.

Currently, a total of 1,238 employees are working in UPSC.