Page 23 - Labor
Jobless growth, rural indebtedness, urban chaos have made aspirational youths restless: Manmohan
The "jobless growth" has slipped into "job-loss growth", which, together with rural indebtedness and urban chaos, has made the growing number of aspirational youths restless, former prime minister Manmohan Singh said Sunday, as he hit out at the government for failing to uplift the economy to its potential. Singh asserted that the domestic challenges of India's economy were daunting in their complexity and devastating in their impact on the society. In his convocation address at the New Delhi Institute of Management here, he said the "grave agrarian crisis, the declining employment opportunities, the pervasive environmental degradation, and above all the divisive forces at work" were some of the challenges facing the nation. "Suicides of farmers and frequent farmer agitations reflect the structural imbalances in our economy which call for serious in-depth analysis and political will to address them," the senior Congress leader asserted. "The jobless growth slipping into job-loss ...
179 Nepalese trafficking victims sent home
Nepalese human trafficking victims numbering 179, including 147 girls, rescued in the past two weeks, were shifted to their home country from here on Sunday, authorities said.
Nine child labourers rescued, two arrested
Nine child labourers were rescued from a bangle manufacturing factory here, following which two men were arrested, police said Sunday. Following a tip-off that the children were forced to work as labourers, a raid was conducted at the factory on Saturday, SHO Kotwali police station Sandeep Saraswat said. The two men, identified as Mohammad Farooq, 37, and Mehfooz, 20, both residents of Bihar, were arrested for allegedly forcing the children to work for them, he said. The children too are from Bihar, the SHO added. It was a joint operation of police and the Bachpan Bachao Andolan, he said. Saraswat said that all the children were rescued and handed over to the Children Welfare Committee.
To fight off unemployment, Iraqi youth plant start-up seeds
Stuck between an endless waitlist for a government job and a frail private sector, Iraqi entrepreneurs are taking on staggering unemployment by establishing their own start-ups. The first murmurs of this creative spirit were felt in 2013, but the Islamic State group's sweep across a third of the country the following year put many projects on hold. Now, with IS defeated, co-working spaces and incubators are flourishing in a country whose unemployment rate hovers around 10 percent but whose public sector is too bloated to hire. Many self-starters begin their journey at an aptly named glass building in central Baghdad: The Station. There, they sip on coffee, peruse floor-to-ceiling bookshelves for ideas and grab a seat at clusters of desks where other stylish Iraqis click away at their laptops. "We're trying to create a new generation with a different state of mind," said executive director Haidar Hamzoz. "We want to tell youth that they can start their own project, achieve their dreams
Labour unrest in focus again as workers of some companies
: Protests by employees of various companies are in focus again in Tamil Nadu with workers of Royal Enfield, tyre major MRF Ltd and auto parts maker Pricol Ltd resorting to strikes, union sources said. While employees of Royal Enfield are on strike at its Oragadam plant situated about 45kms from here, seeking wage revision, workers of tyre manufacturer MRF are protesting since February 9 pressing similar demands. Coimbatore-based Pricol Ltd said it had dismissed some of the employees who went on a strike pressing for various demands including wage revision from August 21, 2018. The company said in a statement that some of the employees were involved in various "unlawful activities" thereby creating an unfavourable atmosphere for peaceful operations of the organisation. According to sources in the Coimbatore District Pricol Workers' Union, an affiliated body of All India Central Council of Trade Union, the employees are on strike seeking "wage revision". Pricol said, ...
LS polls: Mumbai Cong promises jobs, unemployment allowance
The Mumbai Congress is set to roll out a campaign aimed at providing employment to youth in the megacity and a monthly allowance to unemployed people if the party is voted to power in the Lok Sabha polls. The campaign, titled 'Chalo Ward Abhiyaan', taken up in view of the "rising unemployment in the country", will commence from Monday, Mumbai Congress chief Sanjay Nirupam said in a statement. The city Congress unit has already started working on the plan and printed around six lakh forms, he said. The Youth Congress workers will be visiting every house in all the Assembly segments in Mumbai to ensure that every youngster fills these forms, Nirupam said. "Those who fill the forms will be given allowance cards. If we are voted to power, the allowance card holders will be given preference in employment, or else they will provided unemployment allowance," he said. Nirupam said people between 18 and 40 years of age would be eligible for the unemployment allowance. The new ...
US company asked to pay USD 43K in back wages to ex-employee for H1B violation
The US government on Friday asked an American company to pay USD 43,366 in back wages to a former employee for violating the labour provisions of the H-1B visa programme. An order in this regard against the Minneapolis-based TLC Precision Wafer Technologies was issued by the US Department of Labour after the completion of an investigation by its Wage and Hour Division (WHD). WHD investigators found that the employer failed to pay a microfabrication engineer the required wages as stated in the H-1B visa application it filed, and failed to maintain required records. WHD Administrative Law Judge Theresa Timlin Judge denied credit for the firm's cash payments of USD 14,150 to the worker because it failed to report the payments on its payroll records and report the payments to the Internal Revenue Service, as required by the regulations for such credit. "The intent of the H-1B foreign labour certification programme is to help American companies find the highly skilled talent they need when
Section of employees at Royal Enfield Oragadam plant on strike
: A section of employees at a manufacturing facility of bike-manufacturer Royal Enfield at Orgadam near here is on strike since February 13, opposing the transfer of some of their colleagues. According to Royal Enfield union sources Friday, the workers kept off work from the second shift on February 13 to protest the transfer of employees who were also office-bearers of the trade union. "Six people, including two women workers, have been transferred to various locations across the country. We opposed this and issued a notice that we will go on strike from February 13," union sources told PTI. Sticking to the demand to cancel the transfer, a senior union official said a tripartite meeting was held in the presence of district labour commissioner Thursday, but it remained inconclusive. "As of now, we are continuing with our strike and the employees on all the three shifts have joined us," he claimed. Reacting to the protest, Royal Enfield, a part of Eicher Motors, said in .
Expert committee fixes need-based national minimum wage at Rs 375 per day
An expert committee has recommended fixing the need-based national minimum wage at Rs 375 per day or Rs 9,750 per month as of July 2018, irrespective of sectors, skills, occupations and rural-urban locations for a family comprising 3.6 consumption unit, an official statement said on Thursday. The Ministry of Labour and Employment had constituted an expert committee on January 17, 2017, under the Chairmanship Anoop Satpathy, Fellow, V V Giri National Labour Institute (VVGNLI), to review and recommend a methodology for fixation of National Minimum Wage (NMW). The expert committee has submitted its report on "Determining the Methodology for Fixation of the National Minimum Wage" to the government through the Secretary, Ministry of Labour and Employment on Thursday, said the Ministry of Labour and Employment. "...the report has recommended to fix the need-based national minimum wage for India at Rs 375 per day or Rs 9,750 per month as of July 2018, irrespective of sectors, skills, ...
Sibanye to cut 6,000 jobs at South African gold mines
South African gold mining giant Sibanye-Stillwater announced plans Thursday to shed more than 6,000 jobs, or 10 per cent of its workforce, from underperforming gold mines. The company is one of the biggest employers in the South African mining industry, and job cuts are politically sensitive ahead of May general elections in a country where more than a quarter of the workforce are unemployed. Sibanye-Stillwater said five shafts at its Beatrix and Driefontein operations made financial losses last year despite efforts to turn things around. It has therefore initiated the process to lay off 5,870 full-time and 800 casual workers. "Contemplating potential restructuring of this nature is never taken lightly," said the company's CEO Neal Froneman. "Our best attempts to address the ongoing losses at these operations, have however been unsuccessful and sustaining these losses may threaten the viability of our other operations," he said. The targeted workers are employed at Beatrix mine, in ...
Google to spend over $13 billion on U.S. data centres, offices
(Reuters) - Alphabet Inc's Google said on Wednesday it would spend more than $13 billion on data centres and offices in the United States this year.
Cabinet clears three-year extension for National Commission for Safai Karmacharis
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved a three-year extension of tenure for the National Commission for Safai Karmacharis (NCSK) beyond March 31.
PMSYM may offer interest rate of 8% to make informal sector pension fund attractive
The PMSYM (Pradhan Mantri Shram Yogi Maandhan) pension scheme, which is slated to start from February 15, may have an interest rate of around 8 per cent, bringing the pension scheme for the informal workers nearer the interest rate available on pension fund for the formal sector currently at 8.55 per cent.
Global unemployment rate falls to 5%, hits pre-crisis levels
Global unemployment levels fell one percentile to a steady 5 per cent in 2018, the lowest figures since the economic crisis that wreaked havoc on labour markets, the International Labour Organization said in a report published on Wednesday.
Central trade unions extend support to 3-day strike by BSNL staff
Central trade unions on Wednesday said they will extend support to the proposed three-day strike by employees and officers of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd on February 18-20. BSNL employees have announced a three-day nationwide strike demanding allotment of 4G spectrum to the telecom PSU and wage revision for the workforce. "United Platform of Central Trade Unions, which met on 12th February 2019 at New Delhi resolved to extend full support to the ongoing struggle of the BSNL employees and officers," the statement by ten central trade unions said. The ten central trade unions that extended their support to the proposed strike included INTUC, AITUC, HMS, and CITU amongst others.
UK study finds 16 and 70 as happiest age to be
People tend to be at their happiest at 16 and then 70 years old, according to a new study by a UK-based think tank released on Wednesday. The Resolution Foundation analysed official data to asses higher and lower well-being, levels of which it found vary significantly depending on someone's age, income level, housing tenure, and where they live. "The report finds that well-being levels - which include happiness, life satisfaction, self-worth and lack of anxiety - generally fall between someone's mid-20s and early 50s, and then start rising again until people reach their 70s. On the basis of age alone, the key to happiness is to be 16 or 70," the think tank notes. It calls on policy-makers who want to boost well-being to dig deeper into what drives those improvements. A secure job, a home of your own, and more money, particularly for low-income households, are all key drivers of higher well-being, and should therefore be prioritised. "Well-being matters to all of us, and yet we've only
Global unemployment down, but too many working poor: UN
The global unemployment rate inched down last year, the UN said Wednesday, warning though that jobs often failed to guarantee decent living, with some 700 million workers wallowing in poverty. Unemployment around the world fell last year to 5.0 per cent - from 5.1 per cent in 2017 - for the first time dropping to the level seen before the global financial crisis hit in 2008, the International Labour Organization said. But in its flagship "World Employment and Social Outlook" trends report, the ILO also raised serious red flags about the health of the planet's job market. Deborah Greenfield, ILO's deputy director-general, told journalists in Geneva that the decline in global unemployment "is projected to stall", amid "uncertainty on many fronts," and a "deteriorating economic outlook". The UN agency said it expected the jobless rate to remain at roughly the same level this year and in 2020, although the number of unemployed people should swell by two million to a total of 174 million ..
DIC exceeds target of imparting training for skilled manpower
The District Industries Centre here has exceeded the target given to it for imparting training to fulfil the skilled manpower requirement of MSMEs under the Amma Skill Training and Employment Scheme, a top official said Wednesday. Of the over 25,000 target given to Tamil Nadu, Coimbatore was given a target of 1,600 and the district has exceeded it and taken up training of over 1,800 people in 25 industries, DIC general manager R Kannan said. He was addressing a Vendor Development Programme for MSMEs with focus on Sc/ST Entrepreneurs, organised by the Ministry of MSME, National Small Industries Corporation (NSIC) and local Chapter of CII. The scheme's main objective was to fulfil the skilled manpower needs of MSMEs by imparting necessary on the job training by MSMEs themselves and thereby creating employment. The State government is providing Rs 2,000 as stipend for a period of six months, he said. The main aim of the Vendor Programme was to reduce the gap between MSMEs, .
Infosys inaugurates Digital Innovation and Design Center in Providence
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South Korea jobless rate jumps to 9-year peak as minimum wage hike roils labour market
SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's unemployment rate jumped to a nine-year high in January as more people shunned low-paying work in the face of rising minimum wages, putting pressure on the economy and deepening policy frustrations for President Moon Jae-in.