News: Employers feel reservation in private sector could hamper Gurugram’s economic recovery-07-07-2020

https://www.hindustantimes.com/gurugram/reservation-in-private-sector-jobs-might-hamper-gurugram-s-economic-recovery-say-employers/story-IGU61TFFV06XBKZ255wy7O.html

The proposed ordinance — Haryana State Employment of Local Candidates Ordinance, 2020 — was cleared for drafting on Monday by the Haryana cabinet, and will be tabled before the council of minister during its next meeting.

Private employers in Gurugram expressed their dismay at the Haryana government’s plan of reserving 75 percent jobs in private sector for youth domiciled in the state (excluding jobs paying more than Rs 50,000 per month) and said that the move might gravely hamper the region’s economic recovery in a post-Covid world

The move can also fundamentally change the economic landscape of the city, which employs people from across Haryana, Delhi-NCR, India and even the world, stakeholders said.

The proposed ordinance — Haryana State Employment of Local Candidates Ordinance, 2020 — was cleared for drafting on Monday by the Haryana cabinet, and will be tabled before the council of minister during its next meeting. The Jannayak Janta Party (JJP), coalition partner of the BJP in the state, had made a commitment to provide 75 percent quota in private sector jobs to Haryana youths in its election manifesto last year.

Manas Fuloria, founder of a city-based IT-firm and spokesperson for NASSCOM, Haryana, said, “At present, there is not much clarity on the specific terms of the ordinance. We are ourselves trying to ascertain whether it applies only to unskilled labour, or skilled jobs as well. If the ordinance is passed as a blanket reservation, many private companies may choose to relocate their employees to other cities, at least on paper. It will be possible for a lot of companies to work remotely in the current scenario. But I think industries like manufacturing and real estate will be hit hard by these constraints.”

A senior employee of a prominent real estate firm in Gurugram, seeking anonymity, said, “We have been relying on skilled workmen from states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh for years. To train locals from scratch is an investment that we cannot make as we are in a period of economic downturn. This ordinance will make Haryana a less attractive location for private firms to do business. Once the draft ordinance is made public, we can put up our objections to it.”

Employers in the manufacturing sector also appeared worried at the prospect of such an ordinance being promulgated into a law. Pankaj Yadav, president of the Gurugram Udyog Association, said, “At this point in time, jobs are already scarce. Industries should be allowed to hire at their discretion for the next few years at least. This is not the time to be putting such constraints on us in an already reeling economy. We have no issues with hiring locals, but finding people with the right skills and qualifications will become much harder, and possibly more expensive as well.”