Budget 2015: Incentives to boost job market on anvil, say experts

NEW DELHI: To boost job market, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley should announce measures in the Union Budget to enable entry of greater workforce into the formal sector and usher in labour reforms, HR experts say.

In the last year's Budget, the government had given an impetus to skill development, while the 'Make in India' campaign has raised expectations pertaining to more measures for the job market growth.

"The under-performing labour market, with 94 per cent of the workforce being deployed in informal sector with no social security and benefits, presents an opportunity for the government to focus on jobs creation in this Budget," Indian Staffing Federation (an apex body of staffing industry in India) president Rituparna Chakraborty said.

Chakraborty, who is also the co-founder of staffing firm TeamLease Services, said "this requires our 44 labour laws to be clustered into five labour codes to reduce complexity and improve enforcement".

She added that reduction in contractual employment from 29 per cent of the total workforce to 15 per cent by taking immediate implementation of the five labour codes would help in creating more jobs in the formal sector and numbing the majority of the informal workforce on a fast track mode.

Leading job portal Monster.com's Sanjay Modi said, "The nation is eagerly waiting to see the reforms that the Budget would make across economic, industrial and fiscal front. We expect some robust steps from the government that would boost the employment scenario in the country."

According to experts, there is a lot of positivity within the market at the moment, companies are already gearing up for hiring the best talent. Moreover, sectors like auto, manufacturing, aviation that were going through a lull phase are expected to get the much needed boost.

"Due to the initiatives like 'Make in India', the govt may make important policy reforms which will attract foreign investors that can boost the job market," global executive recruitment firm Antal International Network India Managing Director Joseph Devasia said.

Experts believe this budget would have large investments in the infrastructure space which will result in additional jobs creation, including fixed-term contract hiring jobs.

Investment in the power sector is also expected to create jobs in the rural India, and there is likely to be a rise in the contractual hirings in technology firms.

According to recruitment consultancy Kelly Services & OCG India MD Kamal Karanth, the employment exchange initiatives by the government along with changes in the labour reforms will signal a healthy job market in the near future.

Karanth added that employment exchanges in educational hubs and industrial clusters will help in a better demand- supply match.