India ranked 16th out of 17 countries in a study undertaken by Prosperiti, a non-profit that works to building state capacity, to measure working-hour flexibility. Why should this poor ranking matter to India’s manufacturing ambitions?
The answer could lie in the way factories respond to fluctuating demand: Prosperiti found that an Indian manufacturing unit takes nearly 14 weeks to complete an order, against 11 weeks by Vietnam.
The problem, according to Pranjal Chandra, Programme Director (Labour), Prosperiti, is India’s rigid framework governing working hours, overtime and rest periods. These restrictions make manufacturing slower and more expensive, putting Indian companies at a disadvantage in the global marketplace.
But there is a deeper paradox: can labour regulations designed to protect workers end up discouraging formal employment, limiting business expansion and constraining the creation of better-paying jobs?
In this episode of Capital Calculus hosted on StratNewsGlobal.Tech, we explore why working-hour flexibility matters, what India can learn from countries such as Vietnam and China, how labour protection and business competitiveness can be reconciled, and the two key regulatory changes that could help Indian manufacturing compete globally.
