New Delhi: The number of women MPs might have declined in the 14th Lok Sabha but that has not deterred the fair sex from seeking empowerment with the number of such job-seekers rising by leaps and bounds in recent years, only to see placement prospects getting dimmer.

The number of women job-seekers soared by 18 per cent to 106.5 lakh in 2002 from 90.3 lakh in 1997 while the number to total job-seekers increased to 25.9 per cent from 23.1 per cent, according to a report from Ministry of Labour.

This revelation comes amidst an official data that out of 539 MPs in this Lok Sabha, only 44 are women compared to 49 in the previous session.

As if proving women empowerment was merely on paper during the last one decade, the Directorate General Employment and Training statistics show that the overall placement of women through the Government-run employment exchanges was more than halved to 1.8 per cent in 2003 from 3.2 per cent in 1994.

Interestingly, in 2002, only 26,700 women, including 19,800 educated women, got jobs through these exchanges.

The percentage of educated women job-seekers among the total educated job-seekers also increased to 74.6 per cent in 2002 from 72.6 per cent in 1993, it said. Of the total 296.67 lakh job-seekers, educated women numbered 26.8 per cent or 79.4 lakh in 2002 which was up from 57.1 lakh a decade ago.

Kerala had the maximum number of women in fray for jobs at 20.8 lakh followed by Tamil Nadu with 18.5 lakh. However, Gujarat topped in terms of placements with 6,900 women getting jobs through the employment exchange.