The Indian Staffing Federation (ISF), an apex body of the temporary staffing industry in India, has brought out a discussion paper that outlines the challenges facing the industry.

The paper with recommendations will be presented to the Government soon, said Mr K. Pandia Rajan, President, ISF.

The Indian staffing industry is currently posting an annual growth of 10-15 per cent year-on-year and has the potential for a higher growth if given a more conducive regulatory environment, according to Mr Pandia Rajan.

“The staffing industry has the potential to create millions of jobs in India too if supported by conducive laws and regulations. Also, the industry can play a huge and active role in supporting the Government with respect to skilling our labour force,” he said.

The white paper, he explained, was to sensitise the key stakeholders about the challenges this industry is facing in the areas of minimum wages, working hours, infrastructure at work and other recommendations to alleviate working conditions.

Mr Basudev Mukherjee, Executive Director, ISF, said that the issue paper from ISF is an attempt to shed some light on various short- and long-term issues faced by the industry.

“One of the many issues that we have raised is the issue of service tax, which is a big concern for most of the companies in the services sector especially, the staffing industry where it puts a lot of pressure on working capital as the margins are very low,” he added.

The Indian Staffing Federation with 25 member companies focuses on creating triangular employment relationships, in which the staffing company is the employer of the temporary worker, who works under the supervision of the user company.

The staffing industry in India has a low penetration (5 lakh of the 90 million contract workers) in the job market, while temporary workforce constitutes almost 70 per cent of India's total workforce.

>anjali@thehindu.co.in

Related Topics