India Inc scouts for local labour

At a time when most of their migrant workers have either returned home or are waiting to go back and are reluctant to work in industry now, Indian industries are turning to local labour. In order to fill in roles for their migrant workers, while some companies are investing in training more people to cope with skilled labour shortage, others are trying to attract skilled employees from smaller firms that haven’t resumed production yet. Further, companies are also asking their employees to refer skilled people who are unemployed now.

Now that industries can operate in the country, manufacturers need people for skilled roles like operating machines and working on production lines, as well as for jobs not requiring any skills training like packing, logistics and sanitation. According to staffing firm TeamLease, the requests for unskilled and semi-skilled workers have gone up by 30% in the past week and could go up further going forward.

According to Sudeep Sen, business head for industrial, manufacturing and engineering segments at TeamLease, however, the problem of dearth of workforce is a regional one. Thus, whereas this may not be a serious issue in Chennai or the Haridwar industrial area since the labour is sourced from nearby areas or from within the state; industrial areas like Pune and Noida, which rely extensively on workers coming in from other states stare at a severe workforce crunch.