New Delhi: “We must improve the productivity of our labour force, and then only we can be competitive on a global scale”.This consensus emerged at a webinar on ‘’Future of Work in India: Why and how labour and technology can gainfully coexist’ organised by CUTS International today.
“The future of jobs in 2030 is going to be demanding and the influence of AI and automation will be very significant. Therefore, we must prepare young people for the future of jobs by instilling these skills,” said Pradeep S. Mehta, Secretary General, CUTS International in his opening remarks.
Samar Verma, Program Officer, Ford Foundation, highlighted, “Are we going to build the world back better? We need to go beyond the top-down approach and get to the bottom-up approach and we need to go beyond consumption, but start thinking of human beings as a source of everything, not just as a resource”.
Bornali Bhandari, National Council of Applied Economic Research said “Globalisation is not a problem, it is a process. It is upon us to enable our labour force to cope with it”.
Farzana Afridi of Indian Statistical Institute said we need to “Create an enabling environment for women, as women participation in the labour force is very low and this will encourage women to be part of the labour force”.
Further, Amrat Singh, Director, CUTS International mentioned, “The entire skilling and reskilling structure require gender-specific strategies to enhance female labour workforce participation.”
C. K. Saji Narayanan, former President of Bhartiya Mazdoor Sangh said, “There are several informal workers whose skills need to be certified by the government, which is quite a challenge”.
This webinar was organised by CUTS under the project ‘Good and Better Jobs – II’, which is supported by Ford Foundation. It was moderated by CUTS Distinguished Fellows: Didar Singh and Aruna Sharma
