Industries face labour shortage after reopening

New Delhi:  With the re-opening after relaxation of 40 days of complete shutdown,  management of industries in the country are facing severe labour shortage. Most of the labourers have returned to their native states as they could not afford the six weeks of lockdown without wages. Hence, small and large scale industries and trading enterprises have lost skilled labourers. This has created issues in goods traffic and retail trading sector.

The interstate migrant labourers can return to work only after a few months. They cannot afford to beback in the labour sector without an end to the Covid disaster. This also creates issues for industries.

The labourers were not given sufficient protection by either the contractors or the management of the industries during the lockdown period. This was also the reason for the labourers’ return to their home states.

Industries will have to offer higher wages to bring back the skilled labourers. Training new people and identifying the skilled ones will take time. Labourers are not available either. States including Kerala are facing this crisis.

Industries say that April to June will be completely non-operational months. Most of the factories are struggling to operate to one third of their capacity.