India's female workforce participation is among the lowest in the world, lower than even Pakistan, and is going down, Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) deputy governor Dr. Michael Debabrata Patra said on Friday.

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“It's because we are not creating a friendly place at work for our women,” he said and stressed the need to do something or else the Indian economy will keep losing its productivity.

On ways to change the situation, the RBI deputy governor cited the example of Metaverse, where when it gets going, a virtual employee would go meet a virtual boss, take instructions and deliver the work virtually. “So, must think of things that encourage women to join the workforce,” he said.

Women's hiring into senior management positions around the world reverses backward in 2020

Source: Global Gender Gap Report 2021 by World Economic Forum

According to RBI’s deputy governor, India’s biggest challenge is to skill its labour force. Patra was addressing a PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry event where he said India’s labour participation is at a much lower level than it was before the COVID-19 pandemic and labour productivity is among the lowest in the world.

Also Read: Trillions at stake in India as Covid forces women to disappear from workforce

“People are not wanting to come to work because of the fear of the pandemic and of multiple vaccines,” he said.

The labour participation level rate is 39.9 percent wherein it was 42 percent before the pandemic. People are still terrified of the pandemic and nobody in the world can assure them that their workplace is sanitised, he added.

Source: Global Gender Gap Report 2021 by World Economic Forum (Report based on global data)

He said there was a time when Indian prided on its IT services but now IT has very high obsolescence. “At one time it was fine to learn a language and do coding, that's gone now. Now it's cloud computing and warehousing. Lots of IT people are now running Uber and Ola,” he said at the event.

He pushed for the need to reskill continuously and called for changes in the workplace. He pointed out, “during the pandemic, we saw the virtue of work from home or anywhere. Technology can enable that.”

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First Published:Jun 24, 2022 2:57 PM IST