Eight of the top 10 employers showed a double-digit growth in fixed capital. Only one out of 10 showed a double-digit addition in employment.
'A work guarantee that can be switched off at will is no guarantee at all.'
The country's largest IT services company TCS on Monday reported 13.91 per cent decline in December quarter net profit at Rs 10,657 crore. The Tata Group company had posted a net profit of Rs 12,380 crore in the October-December period of FY25 and Rs 12,075 crore in the preceding September quarter.
India's labour market in the second quarter (July-September/Q2) of 2025-26 (FY26) showed resilience, with the jobless rate easing even as more people entered the workforce. However, a rise in youth unemployment and a fall in the share of salaried workers remain areas of concern.
President Droupadi Murmu has given her assent to the Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Bill, which aims to replace MGNREGA and guarantee 125 days of wage employment per rural household.
'As long as apps show impossible delivery times, delivery and packaging workers will be pressured to meet unsafe, unhealthy standards.'
The services sector employs 188 million people but remains highly informal, trapping most workers in low-wage jobs without social protection.
The quarterly manufacturing index by the industry body Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (Ficci) rose to an all-time high in the third quarter of financial year 2025-26 (Q3FY26), with 91 per cent of respondents reporting either higher or same production levels, against 87 per cent in the previous quarter.
Around 128.6 million people were employed in the unincorporated sector during July-September of FY26, showed the latest quarterly bulletin of unincorporated sector enterprises released by the National Statistics Office (NSO) on Tuesday. This is slightly higher than the 128.57 million in the previous quarter.
'Companies will need to revisit compensation structures, contracts, staffing models, and human resources system.'
India on Monday announced closure of negotiations for a free trade agreement signed with New Zealand, its 18th deal so far as the country aims to boost bilateral trade and investments. The India-New Zealand FTA is expected to be signed in the next three months and it is likely to come into force next year.
Ask rediffGURU and PF expert Milind Vadjikar your insurance, stocks, mutual fund and personal finance-related questions.
Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra criticizes the government's proposed bill to replace MGNREGA, arguing it weakens the guaranteed 100 days of employment for the poor and centralizes control over the scheme.
A bill to repeal the MGNREGA and introduce a new rural employment law, the Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin), has been circulated among Lok Sabha members.
The Congress will launch a nationwide campaign against the repeal of the United Progressive Alliance-era rural employment legislation Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) on January 5, similar to the pushback against the three farm laws which eventually forced the Narendra Modi government to rollback its decision, party president Mallikarjun Kharge said.
Israel has for more than two decades and several US presidencies worked to draw the United States into a full-scale war with Iran. Having finally achieved that, the last thing it wants is Trump declaring victory and going home, as he is prone to do. Ali Larijani was the figure most capable of handing Trump a negotiated exit with something to show for it. Without Larijani, the road to an exit gets considerably narrower. Prem Panicker continues his must read daily blog on the Gulf War.
'More and more people from the middle class will become self-employed gig workers mostly working from home, rather than as office workers with salary, promotion, bonuses, etc.'
'Previously, contributing only 25 per cent of material costs, states now face burdens of 40 per cent to 100 per cent of total costs, ensuring poorer states will curb project approvals, directly stifling work demand.'
India and Russia are expected to sign a bilateral mobility agreement during President Vladimir Putin's visit to New Delhi, establishing a framework for legal migration, worker protection, and expansion of skilled Indian manpower in Russia.
Union labour minister Dr Mansukh Mandaviya on Thursday said employment in the country has increased by 36 per cent to 64.33 crore in 2023-24 from 47.15 crore in 2014-15, which shows improvement in job creation during NDA period.
India's new national accounts will leverage new data sources and surveys to enhance the measurement of the country's informal economy, and introduce double deflation methods across sectors, replacing the current system that relies on a single deflation mechanism in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) calculations.
"This is an insult to India's poor, it is an insult to Mahatma Gandhi, it is an insult to Rabindranath Tagore. With just five hours' notice, this bill was given to us. We were not allowed a proper debate," Ghose said.
A policeman in Erode, Tamil Nadu, has been transferred to the Armed Reserve after a video surfaced showing him verbally abusing and allegedly slapping a migrant worker at a roadside eatery. The incident, captured on CCTV, sparked outrage and prompted swift action from authorities.
Indian professionals, including technology workers and physicians, are among the largest cohort of H-1B visa holders.
The convergence of artificial intelligence, evolving labour regulations and rising employee expectations will redefine how organisations manage pay, people and performance in the coming year, a report says.
This was perhaps a missed opportunity for India to spotlight a core domestic challenge: The scale of workforce preparation required for a young, populous, rapidly growing country seeking to reach net zero, points out Radha Roy Biswas.
'Economic activity appears to have peaked in the second quarter of FY26, with industrial output, exports, and business confidence all softening from October 2025.'
What we are watching is something different: A fog manufactured and maintained by the people who started the war, so that the question of why it was started never has to be answered, observes Prem Panicker in his must read blog on the war in the Middle East.
India's services PMI marginally dipped to 58.4 in November while employment in the segment recorded robust growth, a monthly survey said on Wednesday. The seasonally adjusted HSBC India Services Business Activity Index was down marginally to 58.4 from 58.5 in October as sales increased at a softer pace. Last month, the country's services PMI recovered from its 10-month low.
Retirement fund body EPFO has extended the deadline for filing EPF return or ECR (electronic challan-cum-return) by one week for the wage month of September till October 22, 2025. The employers are mandated to file the ECR by the 15th of every month.
After a gap of more than three years, the central government has agreed to resume the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) works in West Bengal with immediate effect, but subject to mandatory adherence to stringent conditions. These include a prohibition on any work valued at more than 20 lakh, compulsory 100 per cent electronic know-your-customer (eKYC) verification of all workers, and mandatory pre-estimation field visits for all works before they are undertaken.
'Solutions developed in India are being commercialised and offered globally because we're executing at scale, creating new markets and revenue streams.'
Across all sectors, the future of work depends on adaptability.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's biggest challenge will be to find a new growth driver, particularly against the backdrop of a global economy ravaged by heightened uncertainty and fragmentation, financial markets on a precipice, and global commodity prices on a continued uptrend.
Budget 2026 sticks to fiscal discipline, shuns populist measures despite five key state elections coming up, but ends up rattling stock markets with a higher transaction tax on derivatives trading.
The fall in the employment rate translated into a 2.6 million fall in absolute employment between December 2022 and March 2023. Most of this fall was in March 2023.
India needs to increase the investment rate to 34-35 per cent from 31-32 per cent currently to achieve a growth rate of 7 per cent and above, said S Mahendra Dev, chairman, economic advisory council (EAC) to the Prime Minister, on Wednesday.
'This idea that inexpensive tech consultants should be coming into this country and bringing their families, I find it just wrong.'
The US Fed's interest rate decision will be the major factor dictating trends in the domestic equity market this week, with global movements and foreign investor activity also influencing sentiment, according to analysts. Stock markets ended the last week on a subdued note, with benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty closing flat.
In what is seen as a U-turn, US President Donald Trump appeared to defend the H-1B visa programme to bring talent from across the world, saying a foreign investor cannot pull people off an unemployment line, who haven't worked in five years, and start making missiles.
