Shortage of workers have affected exporters, especially those dealing with ready-made garments, carpets, pashmina and others, leading them to withdraw their export plan.
Basanta Nahata, a leading carpet exporter, said he was forced to not take any orders from importers in September, October and November last year due to shortage of workforce required to make timely delivery of carpet.[break]
“Despite rising orders from international buyers for Nepali hand-knitted carpet, we are not in a position to meet the demand as we have been facing acute shortage of skilled manpower,” Nahata told Republica.
According to him, unionization in the carpet industries, lucrative job offers from India and prolonged political uncertainty are the major causes behind the deepening paucity of workers.
“More than 60 percent of the workers employed in India´s carpet factories, are Nepalis. They worked for Nepali carpet factories a couple of years back,” he added. Sharing the similar view, Surendra Dhakal, a carpet researcher said lack of training to produce new batch of workers for carpet has led the youths to seek work overseas.
“We need at least 200,000 workers but hardly 80,000 workers are available,” said Dhakal.
The number of carpet factories has drastically dropped to 100 from 1500 over a decade. In an effort to meet the demand for Nepali carpets in the international market, some producers have moved to rural areas, where workers are found easily and chances of unionization are nominal.
Deelip Khanal, director general of Federation of Handicraft Association of Nepal (FHAN) also said that production of handicraft -- mainly metal crafts -- has been affected as producers are facing deficit of skilled workers.
Khanal also said metal producers are ready to employ 200 skilled workers immediately. However, the new generation is not so interested to take up traditional business like metal crafting. Only around 300 households are involved in the trade in the valley.
In a bid to ease shortage of manpower, FHAN is planning to train unemployed village youths in coming days to make up for the shortage.
Ready-made garment (RMG) sector also faces a similar plight. Uday Pandey, president of Garment Association-Nepal (GAN), said around half-a-dozen running apparel industries have been facing shortage of workers despite handsome salary offers.
Exports of carpet and RMG have gone up by 17.3 and 20.8 percent respectively while the export of pashmina and handicraft have dropped by 8.3 percent and 11.2 percent respectively over the first five months of the ongoing fiscal year as compared to the previous year.
Mandu Babu Adhikari, chief program officer of Nepal Pashmina Industries Association (NPIA) also said pashmina industries may also face manpower crunch if programs for manpower development are not introduced immediately. He said the NAPI was planning to conduct trainings targeting women so as to avoid the possible shortage of manpower in the sector.
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