• Investment World
• eWorld
• Catalyst
• Mentor
• Life
• Canvas
• Praxis
• Urban Pulse
• Brand Quest

Our Bureau

New Delhi , Dec. 16

THE Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) has suggested a three-pronged package of measures for generating additional employment of 20 million against 11.6 million envisaged in the 10th Plan document.

This could be achieved by increasing employment elasticity of the manufacturing sector through legislative changes and introducing appropriate market mechanism for infrastructure, and human resource development, the chamber said.

Employment will be a critical factor in the near term as it has not increased adequately, FICCI said.

Further, employment elasticity of output of all sectors has gone down from 0.52 over the years from 1983 to 1993-94 to 0.16 between 1993-94 and 1999-2000.

The chamber has elaborated on 15 important changes in the policy matrix to reverse the declining trend in employment elasticity in the manufacturing sector.

In a study on `Unemployment situation in India', the chamber has categorised these under three broad heads. Firstly, legislative changes in the areas of labour, entry and exit and social safety network.

Secondly, appropriate market mechanisms for quality infrastructure facilities at competitive prices and improved flow of credit, and finally, human resource development including a social security net. Revamping the policy matrix closer to the international practices in Asian countries would help India to improve the employment elasticity at least to the levels attained in the early 80s if not to that of the 70s.

Full implementation of these steps should help improve employment elasticity of manufacturing from 0.33 in the late 90s to as much as 0.75.

Such an improvement would push up employment generation in the 10th Plan period by an additional 15.8 million.

Together with the 4.2 million additional employment expected to be created in the manufacturing sector through other policy changes and programmes, this will take the additional employment generated during the Plan period to 20 million.

According to the study, employment potential in the service sector is expected to get a further boost with most of the major segments maintaining stable levels of growth.

Changing trends in consumption patterns indicate that services such as education and health will benefit from a larger inflow of personal income into the sector that will increase demand.

In areas such as insurance, the entry of private sector players and greater competition is expected to further boost employment prospects, FICCI said. The other major area that offers substantial employment opportunities is IT-related services.

BPO and health tourism can generate a large number of additional jobs for the educated unemployed and other high skilled categories, the chamber added.

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication

Stories in this Section
FICCI suggests measures to generate more employment

Copyright © 2003, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line