The employment exchanges are being modified to become placement agencies for contract workers in an amendment to the Employment Exchanges (Compulsory Notification of Vacancies) Act, 1959.
The definitions of employee and employer are being broadbased to include contract labour who has worked for more than 240 days in a year, in a amendment to the Act that was approved by the Union Cabinet yesterday. This would now include also the vacancies in the plantation sector or plantations owned by a company which was previously excluded from notifying vacancies.
However State legislatures would be exempted from notifying vacancies to bring them at par with Parliament. Among those exempted would also include units employing 10-24 workers in the private sector. But these would have to furnish employment returns.
Another amendment in the Act will oblige employers to intimate the result of selection within 30 days of the date of selection to the exchange. At present this provision is only there in the rules and employers seldom follow it despite repeated follow-ups by the employment exchanges, the note says. The Live Register gets inflated on this account.
The title of the Act itself is to be changed to Employment Guidance and Promotion Centres (Compulsory Notification of Vacancies) Act, 1959.
A Cabinet note said the focus of the Act would now be on vocational guidance and career counseling besides registration and placement.
