Dip in engineering export may cost four lakh jobs
By siliconindia   |   Thursday, 04 December 2008, 17:18 IST   |    2 Comments
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Dip in engineering export may cost four lakh jobs
Kolkata: Triggered by the slowdown in demand and liquidity in the U.S., Europe and Japan markets, plummeting engineering exports may lead to a loss of four lakh more jobs. The Engineering Export Promotion Council of India (EEPC) believes the loss is evident unless certain measures to support engineering companies and exporters are brought in by the government. The supposed slowdown-free export sector has begun to feel the pinch of it with the engineering goods exports dropping by around 10.7 percent in October to $2.56 billion on a year-on-year basis. In fact, it is expected to fall further by around 25 to 30 percent with the production declining by 20 percent, contradicting the previous months' export growth, which grew by around 5 to 10 percent. "This means that employment of nearly 10 percent of the forty lakh of the skilled and semi-skilled workers in the engineering sector may be jeopardized," says EEPC India's new incumbent Chairman Aman Chadha, as reported by Economic Times. Chadha also expresses his doubts on the possibility of raising exports to touch the last year's figure of $33 billion. While the exports grew between 2002-03 and 2006-07, in a range of 13 to 49 percent, even the employment in the sector grew between 5 percent and 38 percent. Hence, the continuous decline of exports will have a direct impact on labor displacement, both organized and unorganized, thus affecting around six lakh workers.

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