The Telangana Cabinet has given its approval to the reservation of jobs for locals in all the new industries emerging in the state. While 80 per cent of semi-skilled jobs will be set aside for locals, 60 per cent of skilled jobs will also be reserved. The move to ensure reservations in private jobs is worrisome for the youth of the country, who work in large numbers at the multinationals that have offices in the state. According to the new policy on jobs, emerging industries in Telangana will be classified into Category I and Category II. The former will have…
Author: HRK News Bureau
The micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) sector is amongst the biggest employers in the country. If the MSME sector is crippled, a significant section of the Indian population will remain jobless. Realising this, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has allowed banks to restructure stressed loans of MSMEs, by avoiding their classification as non-performing assets, provided the banks make 10 per cent additional provisions on such loans. This support comes as a relief to many MSMEs that have been suffering due to the disruption caused by the pandemic and were on the brink of winding up or dissolving their…
The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) and hospitality major, OYO, have come together to create an online certification course on best practices a hotel should follow in the light of COVID-19. The course will be available to individuals in both Hindi and English, and is expected to have a positive impact on hoteliers and hospitality professionals, especially in the budget, mid-segment and boutique hotels space, including homestays. The pandemic has disrupted the hospitality industry and changed the way businesses will operate in the future. This course will particularly focus on redesigning and relearning all sanitisation protocols…
While organisations are taking adequate measures to maintain health and safety across plants and factories, there are still cases of workers contracting the virus outside the plants. In such cases, workers have to go through the necessary quarantine phase. However, for many quarantining is not an affordable option as they survive on their wages alone. In this matter, the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) has filed a petition with the Karnataka High Court stating that although workers infected with the virus have to be quarantined for 14 days, some managements are refusing to grant them paid leave for the…
After months of working from home, cosmetic giant, L’Oreal, has finally started calling its employees back to the New York office, amidst the pandemic. Naturally, this hasn’t gone down too well with the employees, as the fear of exposure continues to remain. The employees raised their concerns with the management, about the health risks involved in showing up for work at the office, during the pandemic, and that too when the work could be easily managed from home. In an email sent by the chief human resources officer of the Company in July, it was revealed that the Company is planning…
The teachers’ associations of the North Delhi Municipal Corporation are threatening to go on strike if their salary dues are not cleared before August 16. Surprisingly, even though the teachers have approached the High Court with their grievances, their pending salaries have yet to be cleared. While more than 5,000 teachers — who were on COVID duty — had been paid their April salaries in July, the remaining over 3,000 teachers were not paid any salary. When the High Court intervened, they were paid their salaries at the end of July. However, the teachers have no clue as to when…
The COVID pandemic has impacted the sports, leisure and entertainment sectors deeply. The latest to feel the impact is Arsenal, the London-based professional football club. Owing to the severe decline in revenues, Raul Sanllehi, head of football and Vinai Venkatesham, MD, Arsenal, have announced plans to slash about 55 jobs. While it has been assured that Arsenal will continue to invest in the team, the layoff will affect those in the soccer, commercial and administrative departments. With stadiums being out of bounds for football lovers, and commercial activities being brought to a standstill, the primary source of income for the…
The pandemic has hit businesses hard and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is no exception. Contract engineers and technicians who are integral to ISRO have been rendered jobless. Over a 100 contract employees who are part of the Hyderabad-based Premier Explosives Limited (PEL) that handles operations and maintenance of the Solid Propellant Plant inside the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, have been laid off. Due to financial constraints, the management is unable to pay their salaries anymore. They have not been paid since the month of May this year. Given the present circumstances and the reduction in operational…
Amidst the pandemic, when companies are either laying off employees or reducing their salaries, telecommunications giant Bharti Airtel has come out to play saviour to its employees. Chairman Sunil Mittal has sent out an e-mail to his employees, announcing a one-time bonus, which he refers to as a token of appreciation from the board. As per the mail, the Chairman is indeed grateful to his employees for standing by the Company through such difficult times. While the news has been confirmed by Airtel to HRKatha, the details of the scheme are yet to be shared. The announcement has brought much…
Alliance Air, an Air India subsidiary, on Tuesday launched a Leave Without Pay (LWP) scheme for its employees, similar to the one rolled out by its parent organisation before its privatisation. The scheme will come into effect immediately. The move comes at a time when Air India employees are resisting the LWP fiercely and have shot off several protest letters to the management. They may also move the court to press their demand. The LWP policy of Alliance Air will grant of leave without pay or allowances to its employees for a period of six months, extendable up to two…
In a bid to cut operational costs, telecom operator, Vodafone Idea (VIL), has laid off nearly 1500 permanent employees. Responding to the financial crisis at the moment, the Company has not just touched upon its mid-level and junior employees, but also asked quite a few senior executives to leave. The move follows an earlier decision by VIL wherein it consolidated its circles from 22 to 10. However, the affected mid-level and junior employees were given severance packages based on their years of service in the Company. Likewise, VIL has paid up to seven months of salary to some senior executives,…
The restaurant group, PizzaExpress, is planning to shut down almost 15 per cent of its 449 restaurants in the UK, which will render almost 1,100 employees jobless. The Company, is on the lookout for a buyer, as part of a restructuring. Meanwhile, one of Europe’s biggest hotel groups, Accor, is also planning to slash 1,000 jobs as part of a €200 million ($236 million) per year cost-saving plan. PizzaExpress plans to strike a deal with its secured creditors and its majority shareholder, which will include bringing down its external debt from £735 million ($959.84 million) to £319 million, a provision…
Hospitality company, OYO, has decided to restore the full salaries of its employees in India and South Asia. While those earning a fixed salary of up to Rs 8 lakh per annum will have their salaries restored with effect from August 1, the remaining staff members will see their salaries restored in phases, starting October. In April this year, OYO had sent some of its employees on leave with limited benefits for four months. A 25 per cent pay cut was also imposed on the workforce from April to July, to tide over the economic crisis brought on by the…
Gurugram and New York-based people analytics startup, inFeedo, has raised $700,000 in financing from Y Combinator, a Silicon Valley-based start-up incubator. The Company had earlier, in 2016, raised a seed funding of $200,000 from angel investors led by Dheeraj Jain, the managing director of Redcliffe Capital and Anupam Mittal, founder, People Group. In its most recent round of funding, a host of angel investors participated, including Sunder Nookala, founder, Kwench; Anil Advani, founder, Inventus Law; Vinod Muthukrishnan, from Cisco; Anand Chandrashekharan, former director, Facebook; Peyush Bansal, co-founder, Lenskart; and Ritesh Malik, founder, Innov8. They participated in the funding round along…
General-purpose database platform, MongoDB, has brought on board Harsha Jalihal as the chief people officer of the company. Jalihal brings with her two decades of experience in the field and will be in charge of overseeing the Company’s global operations and supporting its 2,100 plus employees across 29 countries. As a part of the executive leadership team, she will lead workforce strategy, talent acquisition and development, D&I, rewards and engagement. A statistics graduate from the Madras Christian College, Jalihal began her career in the marketing space, after pursuing an MBA from the Xavier Institute of Management. Her professional journey started…
Blizzard Entertainment staff are revolting over pay, after an internal study meant to ensure fair pay didn’t produce the desired results for the workers. According to a Bloomberg report, employees began sharing an anonymous salary spreadsheet on Friday, encouraging people to share their salaries and recent pay increases. Most of the pay increases given after Blizzard’s study were less than 10 per cent, which is reported to be significantly less than most people expected. Employees at Blizzard Entertainment have previously described having to skip meals to make rent, while one veteran claims they are earning less than they used to…
A gay employee of Citigroup, New York, has alleged that he had to face demotion and discrimination for having raised his voice against harassment. The employee, Thomas Krauss, who works in the hedge funds unit of the American investment bank and financial services company, has filed a complaint against Citigroup for retaliating against him when he questioned the past behaviour of a hire, at the time of appointment. Having joined the Company a decade ago, Krauss feels that he was not promoted to the level of managing director because he was gay and because he actively advocated the Company’s LGBTQ…
Investment in the Tier II account of the National Pension System (NPS) will now be eligible for tax deduction under Section 80C, as per the latest government notification. Contributions by Central government employees in Tier II account will be locked in for three years, to be eligible for income tax benefits. Only if a subscriber has an active Tier I account can she/he open a Tier II NPS account. Tier II account can be activated online or through the associated offices or any Point of Presence (called as POP). A minimum contribution of Rs 1,000 is required to activate the…
For the first time in the history of the Indian Railways, 2,320 employees who superannuated on July 31, were given a virtual send-off. Amidst the pandemic, the Ministry of Railways organised the virual event, wherein all the zones, divisions and production units of the Railways were connected on a single platform along with all employees, including officers. Among the attendees at this event were Piyush Goyal, Minister of Railways, Suresh C Angadi, Minister of State of Railways, Sushant Kumar Mishra, Secretary, Railway Board and other senior officers of the Railways. Goyal urged the concerned staff to continue to serve the…
The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Labour, submitted its report on Code on Social Security, 2019, with recommendations for social protection of those working in the unorganised sector, including gig workers. Among other things, the Committee has recommended that the time limit for payment of gratuity to employees, following termination of employment, should be reduced to one year of continuous service, from the current five years. The Committee suggests that gratuity be paid to all categories of employees, including contract labourers, seasonal workers, piece rate workers, fixed-term employees and daily/monthly wage workers. The definitions of gig workers and platform workers, the…
The death of any employee of Coal India due to COVID-19, while on duty, will be treated as an accidental death, according to Coal Minister Pralhad Joshi. The family or kin of the deceased will be entitled to all financial benefits that are offered to the kin of employees who die during accidents, while on duty. This announcement by the state-owned coal company, which is intended to protect the families of those staff who have lost their lives to COVID, will benefit its approx. four lakh-strong workforce, including regular workers on the rolls and those working on contract. The Minister…
Niyo, the Indian digital banking fintech has offered its employees 10 to 12 per cent salary increments, along with bonuses and employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), in a bid to boost their morale amidst the ongoing pandemic. This move will take its total stock grants to over Rs 100 crore for all eligible staff members. Virender Bisht and Vinay Bagri, co-founders, Niyo, feel that it was necessary to reward the employees for their patience and hard work. The increments and bonuses are the Company’s way of lending support to the employees during these troubled times and showing them that they…
The Union Cabinet, on July 29, has approved the National Education Policy 2020, with an aim to reform the school and higher-education sector in the country. The final nod was given at a press conference in New Delhi, after immense discussions and consultations between the cabinet and the HRD Ministry. Two committees were formed and their reports were considered while framing the new policy. Since it comes after 34 years, this new education policy is a truly historical one for the country. With the renaming of the HRD Ministry as the Education Ministry, a lot of other changes have been…
Raymond Group, the Indian branded fabric and fashion retail company, is slashing jobs as part of its cost-cutting strategy. The Company, which is amongst the world’s biggest producers of worsted wool fabric, is also focussing on cutting down on rents and marketing expenditure to bring down expenses by 35 per cent. The Company has opted for freezing of loan repayments under a one-time scheme offered by the central bank. Following the lockdown and growing popularity of online shopping for garments, the clothing industry has suffered heavy losses. The century-old Raymond Group has managed to survive and is confident of sailing…
A ruling by a two-judge HC bench states that charges cannot be levelled against employees working on fixed-pay contract without a proper departmental inquiry. The order was issued by the court following the termination of two assistant motor vehicle inspectors, against whom charges of corruption were levelled, while they were on duty at two different checkposts in Gujarat. The Anti-Corruption Bureau had charged them, following which they were fired about five years ago. The accused had been issued a show-cause notice followed by a termination order, which the two challenged in the High Court. Last year, the High Court had…
With an aim to make the lives of stranded employees better, the Central government has relaxed certain norms for them during this ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Issuing a notification, the Personnel Ministry said that the norms were relaxed for employees who were either on leave or on an official tour and unable to join office due to non-availability of public transport during the coronavirus lockdown. According to the order, the government servants who were on official tour and unable to return to their headquarters due to non-availability of public transport should be deemed to have joined duty on the date of…