PSU jobs fell from around 14 lakh to 7 lakh.

Our finding

Why we rated this “Misleading”

The two numbers are not the same measure

The comparison sets a historical total against a current one, but the two are drawn on different bases.

The lower contemporary figure largely counts regular CPSE employees — permanent staff on company rolls. Contractual, casual and daily-rate workers make up another substantial part of the same workforce and sit outside that count.

So the fall from around 14 lakh to 7 lakh is not a straightforward halving of people working in public sector undertakings. A significant portion of it is a shift in *how* those workers are engaged.

What actually changed

The genuine development is contractualisation: work that was once done by permanent employees is increasingly done by contract and casual workers.

This is a real and serious change, and it is worth stating plainly rather than as a footnote. A contract worker in a public sector undertaking typically has lower job security, weaker benefits, no pension entitlement and limited recourse in a dispute. Where the work is comparable to that of a permanent employee, the difference in terms is difficult to justify.

For a young person weighing a public sector career, that shift is the substantive issue — more so than the headcount, because it changes what the job is worth even when it exists.

The financial position of the sector

If the argument is that public sector undertakings have been run down, their accounts are the place to test it.

The number of profit-making CPSEs rose from 157 in FY15 to 227 in FY25, while loss-making CPSEs fell from 77 to 63 across the same period. [3]

Net worth across all CPSEs more than doubled, from ₹9.85 lakh crore in FY15 to ₹22.33 lakh crore as at 31 March 2025.

Public sector banks moved from a combined net profit of ₹36,270 crore in 2014 to ₹1.98 lakh crore in FY2025-26 — the fourth consecutive profitable year, which makes it a trend rather than a single good result. [4] [5]

State Bank of India's market capitalisation reached over ₹10 lakh crore, from ₹1.51 lakh crore in FY16. [1] [2]

Where the claim goes wrong

Two figures counted on different bases are presented as a like-for-like comparison, producing an impression of public sector employment collapsing by half.

The framing also implies a sector in decline, which the financial indicators do not support — more CPSEs profitable, fewer loss-making, net worth doubled, public sector banks at record profitability.

The better version of this argument

There is a real criticism available, and it is more damaging than the one made.

Public sector undertakings have become more profitable while the share of their workforce holding secure, permanent, benefited employment has fallen. Financial strength and employment quality have moved in opposite directions.

That is a specific, defensible claim about who benefits from an improving balance sheet. It is lost when the argument is compressed into a headcount comparison that does not hold up on inspection.

In short

The 14 lakh and 7 lakh figures count different categories of worker, so the halving is not what it appears. The substantive change is contractualisation — and the sector's finances have strengthened considerably over the same period.