Any discussion on the unemployment challenge in India should be grounded in the following facts: One, the Indian economy needs to generate employment for about 5-7 million people that enter the labour force annually; two, over 90 per cent of the workforce has informal employment — they have neither job security nor social security; and three, there has been a growing infomalisation in the organised sector. Informal workers are the most vulnerable section of our society and the trade unions have focused their attention on only protecting the rights of workers in the organised sector.
The Narendra Modi government has tried to address the problems of the informal sector through a focused approach which rests on two legs. The first is to promote formalisation and the second is the provision of social security to those remaining in the informal sector.
The most important reform is the introduction of “fixed term contract” employment. According to the notification introducing it, fixed contract workers must be employed under the same working conditions (such as wages, working hours, allowances and other benefits) as permanent workers. Fixed-term workers are also eligible for all statutory benefits available to a permanent workman proportionately, according to the period of service rendered by him/her. Allowing fixed-term employment would help employers to respond to the fluctuating demand and seasonality in their businesses and facilitate the direct employment of workers.
Formal employment is also sought to be promoted by reducing the compliance cost for companies. Under the Ease of Compliance rules, the government has pruned the number of registers mandatory for all establishments to be maintained under nine central Acts to just five from 56, and the relevant data fields to 144 from 933. The government has also taken numerous technology-enabled transformative initiatives such as the Shram Suvidha Portal, universal account number (UAN) and national career service portal in order to reduce the complexity burden and ensure better accountability. In order to reduce the labour law compliance cost for start-ups, the central government has also managed to persuade state governments and Union Territories (UT) to allow self-certification and regulate inspection under six labour laws wherever applicable.
Source: Indian Express