Flexi staff to grow to 2.9 million by 2018: ISF report

India will be the third largest country with "flexi staff", employing 2.9 million by 2018, said a report relased by the flexi staff industry apex body, the Indian Staffing Federation (ISF) on Thursday.

It also stated that flexi staffing in 11 Indian states, which employ the most of such workers, was expected to grow at 12.8 percent per year against national average of 12.3 percent per year.

"11 states will employ 2.4 million out of 2.9 million flexi staff in 2018, with the highest growth expected in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Delhi and Gujarat," said the 'Indian Flexi Staffing Industry Research 2016: Sectoral and State Analysis' released at the 49th Ciett World Employment Conference.

"With an acceleration rate of 12.3 percent over 2015-18, flexi-staffing is becoming the job creation engine where over nine million youth would be added to the organised workforce in the next 20 years," it added.

Addressing the conference, Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya said: "World Employment Conference has thrown valuable insights on some of global best practices. It showcased India as an emerging talent powerhouse before the global counterparts.

"In sync with the objective of the event, we are committed to consider the problems of the workers as well as the employers in a tripartite spirit and create harmonious working environment to facilitate employment creation for India's large pool of unemployed workforce."

ISF president Rituparna Chakraborty said that India was one of the very few countries which had a young workforce with every month, a million youth getting added to India's workforce and potentially to the world's workforce.

Ciett president Annemarie Muntz meanwhile said that India has unlimited potential in terms of talents and skills which are key to a successful labour market in the global economy, but structural challenges are holding it back to fulfilling its full potential.

"Over complex regulation and bureaucracy need to be adjusted to the new era of employment," she added.

--IANS

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