Small companies step up hiring of women amid labour crisis

A few years ago, in the weeks running up to Dussehra--which marks the beginning of the festival season in India--Raghavendar Gupta, the owner of Tweakymod, a mobile phone cover manufacturing company based in Hyderabad, faced an exodus of experienced workmen from his company. Amid a heavy production schedule and growing order backlog, Gupta and a group of women workers at Tweakymod rolled up their sleeves to meet the deadlines.

In just a few days, they had managed to get their flailing output numbers back on track. It was this support that made Gupta promise to himself that he would hire more women to man his work stations. “Over 60% of our people are women now; for day shift, this number goes up to 80%,” said Gupta.

An increasing number of Indian micro, medium and small enterprises (MSMEs) have stepped up their hiring of women talent to meet the labour shortage prevalent in the market, said MSME owners and staffing companies ET spoke with.

The post-pandemic migrant labour crisis–when many workers moved back to their hometowns and several of them did not return--has prompted MSMEs to increasingly rely on the female talent pool by hiring from local areas.

According to the estimates of Teamlease Services, two out of three MSMEs are looking to employ more women.

That apart, a whole lot of qualitative reasons tilt the balance in favour of women, say MSME owners. Women are more diligent, stay on the job for a longer time, are more punctual, and gel better with line supervisors, said several MSME owners.

“With every increasing challenge of finding the right talent, ensuring employee retention, tackling the increasing trend of sudden resignations, employers, especially those in MSME, are leaning towards hiring more women,” said Rituparna Chakraborty, executive vice president, Teamlease Services.

Saundarya Rajesh, founder-president, Avtar Group, said it is the need for talent that is prompting the MSMEs to hire more women. “In tier-2 and 3 cities, many MSMEs are creating a more conducive atmosphere for women,” she said.

Many companies have embarked on re-tooling to make their machinery women-friendly.

“To tide over labour shortage, we’re training women to run heavy machinery in our plant…We’ve taken up some re-tooling to make these machines more women-friendly; nearly 40% of our employees are women now,” said Akash Suresh, proprietor of Ahar, which makes a range of cookers and other kitchenware.

As per the MSME ministry’s report for 2021-22, there are 111 million employees in the sector, of which 76% are male and 24% female. Beyond that, India has over 63 million MSMEs of which 15 million (over 23%) are owned by women.

“Many men lost their jobs during Covid…women in the hinterlands had to take up jobs to support their families. We’ve been hiring a lot of women since then,” said Priyanka Jaiswal, proprietor of Samridhi Design Creations, which makes oxidized jewelry.

“I like women employees because they talk openly and are not scared to discuss new ideas or designs…When they start earning, they also get a lot of respect in their household. Most women who work with us earn Rs 5,000 – 10,000 every month,” she added.

Mukesh Mohan Gupta, president, Chamber of Indian MSMEs, an industry body, said most service-focussed MSMEs, retail, textile & garment and food businesses now have majority of their staff as women. “Higher retention rate is one factor that is prompting MSMEs to hire more women these days,” he said.