New Delhi, April 27 :

Urging trade unions and business leaders to create an environment in which all stakeholders have adequate incentive to be active, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Friday said a situation needed to be created in which both the government and the private sector are encouraged to invest.

“To promote new employment we need an environment in which both the government and the private sector are encouraged to invest. There is much that trade unions and business leaders can do to help us create such an environment,” Singh said at the inaugural address at the 41st Session of Indian Labour Conference.

“I sincerely believe that if we can provide an environment in which investors feel confident enough to invest, we will be able to generate more gainful employment and promote workers’ welfare.”

While drawing on the experience of China, which had done well in both industrial modernisation and management of technical change, Singh hinted at a word of caution, pointing out that change should not be borne unduly by the working class.

“It is our solemn duty to protect the interests of workers and of all those seeking work even as we manage processes of social and economic change. It is, therefore, necessary to evolve mechanisms to smoothen the effects of processes of technological change,” he said.

Singh said the real challenge before the government was to increase the skilled workforce from about 5 per cent at present to about 50 per cent, a norm in many developed countries.

“To make our working people employable we must create adequate infrastructure for skilled training and certification and for imparting training, industrial training institutes therefore must keep pace with the technological demands of modern industry and the expanding universe of technical knowledge.”

Reminding that the country had a large working population, Singh said the challenge was to turn people from social liabilities to economic and social assets if they had to be gainfully employed.

“Investment in their capabilities, in workers’ education and training and investment in labour intensive manufacturing are necessary to promote growth of employment and to promote workers’ welfare,” he added.

Singh gave away Shram Awards at the function, attended by labour minister Oscar Fernandes and heavy industries and public enterprises minister Santosh Mohan Dev.