Budget 2021 Pushes for Women’s Workforce Participation

The Union Budget for 2021 will help women's participation in the workforce as allowances to work all shifts will encourage companies across most of the sectors to employ more women.

Nirmala Sitharaman announced that the women will be allowed to work in all categories and also in the night shifts with adequate protection. She also added that minimum wages to be applied to all the categories of workers.

Experts note that to reap the maximum benefit of this allowance, all the organizations should put in place the required infrastructure to build a safe and secure workplace to attract and employ more women.

Welcoming the proposal of the finance minister, the Executive Vice President of Teamlease Services, Rituparna Chakraborty said that "It is a welcome move and is in line with the spirit of providing equal opportunities for women,".

"However, this move needs to be coupled with necessary investments companies need to make sure the workplace is safe for the women and they also get adequate and equal opportunities to upgrade and upskill themselves at par with men to sustain themselves across all categories of work, she further added.

The FM estimates that around 15 lakh women (both white-collar and blue-collar workers) are benefiting from this. The women's labour force participation is likely to increase anywhere between 1%-2% this year.

Experts say that this will help industries like IT, BPO, ITES in SEZ's, manufacturing companies like pharma, textile and FMCGs will be encouraged to include more women workforce in their organizations.

GoodReturns.in