Female workforce, employee welfare to drive inclusive growth: Labour secy

Decriminalization of labour laws, increasing female workforce participation, social security, labour welfare will drive inclusive growth in the country, a senior government official said on Thursday.

Secretary for Ministry of Labour & Employment Sumita Dawra made the remarks at an industry interaction organised by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Employers' Federation of India (EFI) in Bengaluru.

In the session attended by 200 industry members, "Sumita Dawra...highlighted about the Ease of Living and Ease of Doing Business reforms introduced by the Ministry of Labour & Employment, GoI. She emphasised on decriminalization of labour laws, increasing female workforce participation, social security, labour welfare that will drive inclusive growth in India," a CII statement said.

Dawra also mentioned on employment, an improving trend is evidenced by PLFS (Periodic Labour Force Survey) & KLEMS data, besides EPFO net subscribers have gone up by more than 6 crore since September 2017.

The growth drivers of employment in the non-farm sector are services, construction, trade & manufacturing. In this context, to improve job creation, quality of jobs and formalisation of the labour market, with access to social security schemes, the ELI Schemes (Employment Linked Incentive) have been announced in the budget 2024-25, she said.