labels: Economy - general
Government forces Assocham to withdraw job-loss report news
31 October 2008

Sajjan JindalUnder pressure from the government, Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry today withdrew its controversial report, which forecast a 25 per cent job reduction by industries across the various sectors in 10 days following Diwali (See: Companies may cut jobs by 25 per cent in ten days: Assocham).

Assocham has come under severe criticism by both government and rival industry associations, including the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and the Confederation of Indian Industry, for the ill-timed and ''baseless'' report.

''Assocham withdraws its report of 25 per cent job cuts,'' chamber secretary-general D S Rawat said in a statement hours after finance minister P Chidambaram criticised it for setting off a panic with its report.

"The deputy chairman of the planning commission and my colleague Jairam Ramesh (minister of state for commerce) have taken serious exceptions to the report,'' Chidambaram had said.

While Assocham is yet to reveal the sample size of the industry survey, Rawat admitted the report was ''not representative of the industrial segment in its totality.''

He said the ''analysis'' of job cuts was primarily in real estate, brokerage and investment advisory sectors.

''The chamber's research team is now following up its recent analysis with a detailed survey on a much larger sample size to get a more definitive picture on corporate response to the present crisis,'' Rawat said.     

Meanwhile, Rawat said new job opportunities were emerging in education, bio-technology, petroleum and chemicals and health sectors.     

''We do not believe any immediate threat exists of the form that Assocham is alluding to. We should not panic," Rajeev Chandrasekhar, president of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), said.

The CII, meanwhile, is in the process of countering the job loss claims with its own study.     


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Government forces Assocham to withdraw job-loss report