The government plans to launch the second version of the National Career Service (NCS) portal as well as convince states to roll out labour reforms to help improve the ease of doing business and give social security to the unorganised labour, specifically gig and platform workers, in 2024.
In conversation with PTI, Union Labour and Employment Minister, Bhupender Yadav, said that his ministry would soon launch the advanced version, called NCS 2.0, to help improve job matching and better the search facility for job seekers, in addition to a recommendation engine for skilling by using latest technologies and leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Notably, the NCS project was launched in July 2015 to give several employment-related services, such as career counselling, vocational guidance, and information on skill development courses, apprenticeships, and internships, via a digital platform.
The NCS platform has over 3.64 crore registered jobseekers, 19.15 lakh employees, and a listing of more than 1.92 crore vacancies, as of November 30, 2023. The portal logged over 13.49 lakh active vacancies in November.
The portal is combined with facilities of 28 states/Union Territories to build a detailed pan-India network. It has also been integrated with several private portals like monster.com, Freshersworld, and HireMee. It is also linked with the government’s Skill India portal Udyam Portal (MSME), e-Shram, EPFO, ESIC, and DigiLocker, among others.
On labour reforms, Yadav said, “In 2024, as India continues to march towards being a developed economy under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership, I am hopeful states will begin rolling out the labour reform introduced by the Centre…. so that the India of Amrit Kaal has a healthier and socially secure workforce that contributes to the country’s growth and at the same time gains from it; and also so that we continue to firm up ease of business in the country.”
To bring about labour reforms in the country, the Centre has built four Labour Codes – the Code on Wages, 2019; the Industrial Relations Code, 2020; the Code on Social Security, 2020; and the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020.
These codes intend to boost the protection available to workers, such as unorganised workers, in terms of statutory minimum wage, social security, and healthcare. In order to implement the codes, rules are needed to be formulated by the centre and state governments.
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