Union labour Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Wednesday urged the industry to develop home-grown models for understanding and assessing employment, jobs, unemployment, skilling, growth, and the economy to map the country’s real situation and not interpolate data into “foreign constructs.”

He also said that model career service centres would be set up in every university under the PPP mode to boost job creation.

The Union Minister said this after hearing industry presentations in core sectors—including manufacturing, logistics, green jobs, hospitality, and tourism—at the CII Conference on the Future of Jobs, ‘Sharing Tomorrow’s Workforce: Driving Growth in a Dynamic World’.

Mandaviya recommended that the industry not pitch its domain workforce prospects on models that do not reflect conditions here.

He said every continent has its own model. Some may not consider self-employment a job, but it is a very big sector generating employment in the country.

“Which model are we analysing? Do we have our own model?” he remarked, as he suggested for mapping, among others, of data and demography to offer out-of-the-box solutions on employment that are rooted in Indianess.

He, however, lauded the CII’s initiative of creating a model career counselling centre in Gurugram.

“This type of model (centre) should be in PPP mode….I want to set up a career counselling centre in every university through industries bodies like CII, FICCI and ASSOCHAM wherever they have the reach,” Mandaviya said while emphasising that he has directed his ministry to seek access of all such efforts.

He suggested that the premises for setting up the centre would be given by universities while the skilling and work would be done by the federations and local industries bodies, and logistics support would be given by the employment ministry.

Sharing his thoughts on future of jobs, he said that the National Career Service portal should have interface so that job seekers can easily navigate opportunities as per their qualifications and experiences, both in India and abroad.

He insisted that demand and requirement lead to skilling and, subsequently, employment, which is why, in the Employment Linked Incentive, the Ministry is introducing the hub-and-spoke concept. It’s a model with a central hub connected to multiple spokes for efficient management of various things.

There is no dearth of jobs or employment and all jobseekers need are directions.

“We have skill as well as manpower. We need to create an ecosystem. Wealth creators should be respected. When wealth is created then employment is created,” he said.

The minister also stressed the need for tweaking the definition of employment, saying all those creating wealth by working at home or in their fields are also employed. He said women are a major workforce in the agriculture and animal husbandry sectors, which are not recognised in the database.

He also suggested that there should be a task force for workforce analysis.