Larsen and Toubro (L&T) chairman and managing director SN Subrahmanyan remarked on Tuesday that while migration of workers is a common scenario in most parts of the world, Indians do not want to move for work.
L&T boss claims Indian workers do not want to relocate
The L&T boss said that for the nation to grow, building roads and power plants is crucial but it becomes difficult because of the labour shortage.
Speaking at the CII South Global Linkages summit in Chennai, Subrahmanyan said, “We have to employ 4 lakh labourers and the attrition rate is three to four times a year, so for employing 4 lakh labourers we employ about 6 million.” [Source: Times of India]
He added that the method of labour mobilisation has changed. To hire carpenters for a new site, the company sends messages to the list of carpenters it has worked with in the past. Now, the workers decide whether to take the job or not.
"That is a method of mobilisation. But at the same time imagine now to mobilise 1.6 million people every year. So we have created a separate department called HR for Labor which does not exist in the company but it does exist. And sometimes I even sit on that,” the chairman said.
Subrahmanyan mentioned that a similar issue is faced in engineering roles where fresh graduates are unwilling to relocate.
“When I joined L&T in 1983, my boss said, if you are from Chennai, you go to Delhi and work. Today if I take a guy from Chennai and tell him to go to Delhi and work, he says bye,” the chairman claimed.
He further said: “If you tell him (IT employee) to come to the office and work, he says bye. And that's a different world altogether. Therefore, it is a funny world which we are trying to live in and many of us wearing slightly more white hair are trying to understand it. We have to see how to live with this world and have policies which are flexible to understand all this and take it forward.”
Incidentally, the L&T boss was slammed by netizens for his infamous “stare” comment last month.
"What do you do sitting at home? How long can you stare at your wife?" the L&T chairman asked his employees in a viral video. "Come on, get to the office and start working."
He even suggested a 90-hour workweek including Saturdays and if possible Sundays.
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