Several industries are staring at a labour shortage amid the exponential surge in COVID-19 cases and imposition of curbs by states, said a report.

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Sectors such as real estate, engineering, manufacturing, construction, healthcare and pharmaceutical are facing difficulties in sourcing blue collar manpower, said a survey by staffing firm Teamlease Services.

The survey, which covered 850 companies across 21 sectors, said that nearly half of the companies surveyed planned to hire labour in the next three months.

According to Teamlease and industry estimates, the present labour shortage is 15-25 percent across industries and is likely to widen in the next couple of months with a spike in COVID-19 cases.

The rise in infections will dent the confidence of migrants who are already wary of returning, causing the current shortage, ET quoted Amit Vadera, assistant vice-president of Teamlease Services, as saying. Vadera added that in such a situation, "mobilisation of labour is likely to be a challenge in the months ahead”.

Even sectors where the supply of labour is about 3-4 percent higher than demand such as ecommerce, logistics and fast-moving consumer goods are likely to come under pressure due to manpower shortage, he said.

An earlier report of Economic Times had pointed out that leather goods exporters from Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata and garment exporters in Noida were facing labour shortages. In Noida, 3,000 garment export units were short of around 3 lakh tailors as the COVID-19 resurgence halted the return of migrant workers.

Meanwhile, company executives believe they are better prepared to meet the challenges this time as compared to the first two waves. They are also taking a number of measures to retain the existing workforce.

Another factor that may drive labour workforce to return to the cities is that wages are not as high in the villages as in the urban areas. "We have seen even in our group that locally available options do not work for a longer duration and cannot match the wages and incentives in cities," ET quoted Sachchidanand Shukla, chief economist at the Mahindra Group, as saying.

(Edited by : Aditi Gautam)

First Published:Jan 12, 2022 4:36 PM IST