With offices opening across the countries and companies beginning to call employees back to workspaces on a full-time or hybrid basis, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made an announcement endorsing the work-from-home ecosystem and the flexible working model, calling them the ‘future’.
At a time when most top conglomerates are calling their employees back to offices after an over 2 year long work from home regime, Modi pressed on the need of such work styles and increasing the women’s labour force participation.
Speaking at the 44th national conference of labour ministers and secretaries of all states and union territories in Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, PM Modi said,
“The need of the hour is flexible workplaces, the work-from-home ecosystem, and flexible work hours. We can utilise systems like a flexible workplace as an opportunity to increase women’s labour force participation. By making the right use of women power, India can achieve its goals faster.
Today the world is entering the digital era. The entire global environment is changing rapidly. Today we are all witnessing a new dimension of employment in the form of gig and platform economy. Be it online shopping, online health services, online taxi and food delivery, it has become a part of urban life today. Millions of young people are driving these services, this new market. Our right policies and right efforts for these new possibilities will help make India a global leader in this sector.”
Modi’s remarks on increasing female participation in work places in the country comes at a time when India reportedly sees among the lowest female participation in the workforce across the world.
As per the latest Periodic Labour Force Survey report in 2021-22, India’s female labour force participation rate stood at 25.1%, compared to 57.55 for males, the former waving around the 20% levels since decades.