Sectors that are hiring include pharmaceuticals, healthcare, ecommerce, manufacturing, FMCG, logistics and engineering.
India may have started lifting the lockdown in a staggered manner to reopen the economy but the country is facing a labour shortage as hundreds of thousands of migrant workers have left the cities for their hometowns.
Among sectors, construction and real estate face a 52 percent worker shortage, followed by manufacturing (44 percent) and pharmaceuticals (42 percent), The Economic Times reported.
Among regions, heavily migrant dependent south India is struggling, it added.
The country saw an exodus of migrant workers when it went into a lockdown to stonewall the coronavirus. Desperate, many of them even walked hundreds of miles to get home before special trains were arranged to take these workers, who are the backbone of the Indian economy, home.
The total shortage of workers across sectors in the coming months is likely to be 40-50 percent and many companies are exploring incentives to bring them back as the lockdown eases, a survey conducted by TeamLease Services for the newspaper said.
Companies are also recruiting staff from nearby villages and other states, offering wage hikes and bonuses, food and transportation. Isolation facilities for out-of-state workers, who need to comply with the 15-day mandatory quarantine requirement, are also being arranged, the report said.
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Biplab Baksi, Executive Director, Human Resources, Dabur India, told the newspaper that the company was hiring locals from neighbouring villages and towns for its manufacturing units in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. It has permission to bring in workers from other states such as Jharkhand in case of a staff shortage, he said.
The company had arranged transportation for migrants from Jharkhand and ensured that health and safety protocols were followed, Baksi added.
“The demand-supply gap is high … We see a temporary wage hike for the blue-collar workers in the form of extra hourly or daily wage, bonus, and other perks as companies will make an attempt to retain the migrants,” Amit Vadera, assistant vice president at TeamLease Services, told ET.
For example, power EPC firm KEC International is hiring and training unskilled workers and is considering incentives like retention pay for those who commit to stay for a period.
Sectors that are hiring include pharmaceuticals, healthcare, ecommerce, manufacturing, FMCG, logistics and engineering. There are openings for lab technicians, dispatchers, packers, delivery staff, drivers, store executives, sweepers, masons, tile fixers, electricians, maintenance engineers and security guards.
Some are optimistic that the migrant drought will not last long and many are already moving back. “India has a lot of young aspirational workforce … who will want to come and work in urban centres … if payment is done smoothly and income flow regularises, more people will return,” Santrupt Misra, CEO – Carbon black business, Aditya Birla Group, told ET.
Niranjan Hiranandani, managing director of the Hiranandani Group, said it was “important” for companies to allay migrant’s fears about the virus and job loss.
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