The Hindu Business Line : Labour shortage worries Tirupur knitwear exporters

SITUATION VACANT: Dearth of skilled labour in Tirupur hosiery units has given rise to plethora of bill-board displays announcing vacancies for tailors, checkers etc., in the knitwear town. — M. Balaji

Coimbatore , Dec. 1

FOR the booming Tirupur knitwear export industry, the mounting orders from importers this year may sound good augury. But the surge in orders has led to gaps in the manpower planning for a labour-intensive industry in Tirupur, which is heavily dependent on outside labour both for the skilled and unskilled jobs.

What is more, the recent rains have further accentuated the dearth of labour for the Tirupur industry. Large-scale absence of migratory labour, which has left Tirupur units to resume farming activities in the light of copious water now available for cultivation, is acutely felt by the knitwear units. Even as the knitwear exporters have gone about enhancing their production capacity to match the market demands, the shortage of labour is a stark reality for them now.

Demand for skilled workers: "Going by the current level of capacity expansion happening in the garment production units in Tirupur, the annual demand for skilled workers (mostly for the tailor/cutting masters categories) is now estimated to be between 25,000 and 30,000. But given the low productivity of the existing labour and the very high turnout ratio among the skilled workers, the garment units in Tirupur on expansion mode are compelled to look for training of workers rather seriously," said Mr Sekhar, co-ordinator of the SIHMA Institute of Fashion Designing and Apparel Training.

Unlike earlier periods when the unskilled workers in knitwear production used to get on-the-job training, the introduction of `line-in' production by most leading garment houses has spelt demand for induction of trained labour.

Training takes time: At the same time, the huge number of candidates needed to be trained and the uncertainties involved in retaining the trained labour in continuous service under any one factory would force Tirupur industry towards sponsoring job-oriented training in the very areas which have potential to supply huge workforce, instead of setting up training institutes in Tirupur by the industry themselves. Apart from facilitating training, this system would make the cost of training rather low and prove viable for the labour-intensive garment units as the minimum time required to impart skill in tailoring/cutting would be three to four months, feels Mr Sekhar.

With Tirupur knitwear production becoming a year-round activity amidst mounting job orders placed by the importers, its job market is re-tagged from being seasonal employment to continual employability.

The industry's current worry is as much on enhancing labour productivity as on filling the shortfall in the availability of skilled workers. "Today's market dictates will not allow the units to indulge in offering skill upgradation to its workers, which is time consuming, and the units are under pressure to have their workers to remain productive from the day one," said an executive of a leading garment house seeking anonymity.

The exercise of roping in the sufficient number of skilled labour and their retention would push up the cost for the Tirupur units and the rise in the production cost on this count, according to him, would be some 20 per cent or so.

The skill upgradation training and evaluating the labour productivity are top on the agenda of Tirupur knitwear exporting industry, which has proposed to commission a study on the existing labour productivity with the help of the National Productivity Council's Chennai chapter, said Mr G. Karthikeyan, Secretary of the Tirupur Exporters Association. The association has also identified 17 polytechnics in the State, which will be able to offer job-oriented training relevant to garment industry.

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