<div>Endorsing the government's labour law reforms, National Institution for Transforming India Aayog Vice-Chairman Arvind Panagariya on Friday (21 August) said India Inc needs to step up to create jobs and offer inputs to the government on boosting employment at good wages.</div><div> </div><div>"They should say what the government should do so that employment increases at good wages," Panagariya said in New Delhi at the 18th JRD Tata Memorial Lecture.</div><div> </div><div>"Where is the passion for hiring workers in the industry here? . . you need to lobby to the government to bring more employment."</div><div> </div><div>He admitted that (the industry) has talked a lot about the rigidities in labour laws.</div><div> </div><div>The industry has been pushing for relaxing the labour law framework to boost ease of doing business in the country.</div><div> </div><div>The government, in turn, has taken a host of initiatives to amend labour laws, but all have run into stiff opposition from trade unions.</div><div> </div><div>Trade unions have called for a nation-wide strike on September 2 and are expecting 40 crore (400 million) workers from organised and unorganised sectors to join the call.</div><div> </div><div>"What are those conditions (for creating more jobs) only entrepreneurs can tell. What is keeping them from employing more workers?" Panagariya wondered.</div><div> </div><div>Expressing concern over the industry promoting more capital-intensive businesses, he said, "I fear that entrepreneurs will simply look the other way, hire more and more machinery and go into capital-intensive industry.</div><div> </div><div>“Even within the industry they operate, they choose most capital intensive one. That is ultimately not good from the employment perspective."</div><div> </div><div>He cited an example of labour-intensive industry like ready-made garments where India has been left behind by smaller countries.</div><div> </div><div>"If you look only at India's clothing exports, we are about 1/10th of China even today. . . in absolute terms, we are less than Bangladesh and even a bit behind Vietnam."</div><div> </div><div>He also stressed on the need for phasing out trade barriers to boost growth.</div><div> </div><div>India has a labour force of around 50 crore (500 million), with 1.2 crore (12 million) joining the workforce every year.<br><br>(PTI)</div>
