Labour reforms: Why a single code may not be enough

For one, employers should be as free to hire workers when they need them for a project as to lay them off when they don't need them or when the project gets over

Labour reforms appear to be in the air. Governments at the Centre as also in the states are busy undertaking all kinds of labour reforms. But there are crucial differences in the way the Centre and the states are approaching this idea.

For instance, just a few days ago, the government of Jammu and Kashmir announced its plans to push ahead with labour law reforms. In its Budget for 2018-19, the state government declared that it would soon finalise a uniform employment code. The proposed code will subsume in itself all its existing 260 different labour laws.

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