Chicago – July 20, 2024
The southern Indian state of Karnataka has paused a bill that mandated quotas for locals in private sector jobs after pushback from tech companies.
The state cabinet had approved the bill on Monday, triggering protests from top industrialists and opposition leaders.
The bill requires firms to reserve 70% of non-management and 50% of management jobs for locals.
On Wednesday, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said the bill would be reviewed in the next cabinet meeting before any decision was made.
The announcement came a day after he posted on X (formerly Twitter) that the bill would reserve “100%” of jobs for Kannadigas (natives who speak Karnataka’s local language Kannada).
The post was widely shared on X and sparked criticism from business leaders.
Mr Siddaramaiah deleted his post after the state’s Labour Minister Santosh S Lad clarified that jobs could be “outsourced” if skill sets were not available locally.
“But the government is trying to bring in a law to give preference to locally available skills,” he said.
In India, for a bill passed by a state to become a law, it has to be approved by the state’s assembly and receive the governor’s assent.
