The government is collecting data on the number of industrial units closed down in the country and the number of people who have lost jobs.

The labour ministry says it is using its machinery, like the Regional Labour Commissioners and Central Labour Commissioners, while the other ministries, like the industry ministry, are using their own mechanisms to collect the data.

Yesterday, Union Labour Minister Oscar Fernandes held an hour-long meeting with Indian Trade Union Congress President Sanjeeva Reddy and asked him for suggestions to provide a security cover for those losing jobs. Earlier, talking to Business Standard, Fernandes said that the ministry was assessing the number of job losses and would come out with a solution.

Meanwhile, trade unions HMS and CITU have written to Fernandes demanding that the second Indian Labour Conference be convened to enable a consultation between employer organisations, employee unions and the government for formulating a social security cover for the growing number of people who are losing jobs due to the economic recession sweeping the global market.

“A temporary unemployment allowance is one of the solutions in such a situation,” said Reddy, adding the government was examining this option as well as any other that various stakeholders would place before it. “We are trying to formulate guidelines on the amount and the duration for such an allowance,” he said.

Another issue before the unions and the government is that in the case of most industrial units that are closing down, 30 to 40 per cent of workers are on contract. “We have to see how these workers can be brought under any social security net that is formulated,” Reddy said.

“The Intuc is holding internal discussions to thrash out this issue. We would be taking our findings to the ministry,” he said.

Labour Secretary Sudha Pillai said that the ministry was now focusing on data collection.

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