The government will soon announce a National Employment Policy (NEP), and with this, employment creation will be mainstreamed into all macroeconomic decision-making.
Addressing the 99th session of the International Labour Conference in Geneva, under the auspices of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), Union Labour and Employment Minister Mallikarjun Kharge said the NEP would provide a holistic framework towards achieving the goal of remunerative and decent employment for all men and women in the labour force in a sustainable manner.
On India's recovery in job market vis-a-vis global meltdown, the Minister said India was among the first few countries in the world to implement a broad-based, counter-cyclical policy package to respond to the negative fallout of the slowdown. India responded to the challenge of minimising the impact of crisis and shifted its policy stance from monetary tightening to monetary easing. “Our policy response was aimed at enhancing the availability of credit at lower cost for financing economic activities.”
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He said the country was focussed on offering opportunities to youth. The National Policy on Skill Development had set a target of training 500 million people by year 2022. The 11th Plan was keen on developing labour-intensive small and micro industries to encourage employment programmes for the rural poor.