Bhoja Poojari has handled baggage for India’s Jet Airways Ltd since it began flying nearly 26 years ago. Now, like many other Jet employees, he fears for the future as the debt-laden airline descends into crisis.

The Monster Employment Index for India recorded a 5% decline in online recruitment activity for February 2019, when compared to the same period a year ago.

The index is a monthly gauge of online job hiring activity by Monster.com, which records the industries and occupations that show the highest and lowest growth.

Among industry sectors, Office Equipment/Automation (up 32%) registered the steepest increase in online recruitment activity between February 2018 and 2019. This was followed by Production and Manufacturing at 28%. The steepest decrease in demand was registered in Agro-based industries with a decrease of 32%.

Among occupations, Health Care professionals saw 8% year-on-year growth in February. HR & Admin was the only other occupational category to witness growth at 1%. Online demand for Marketing & Communications (down 10%) professionals eased the most.

Year-on-year, Jaipur (up 5%) and Chandigarh (up 2%) led all monitored cities in online recruitment.

India’s automobile industry may see hiring grow by 10 to 15% in fiscal year 2020 compared to the previous year, reports the Economic Times, citing a study from PeopleStrong. The expected growth in recruitment comes as new products and technologies, expanding capacity and stiffer emission rules kick in, providing employment opportunities at both leading car manufacturers as well as component makers. Car manufacturer Maruti Suzuki for example, will require between 2,000 and 3,000 workers once its second plant in Gujarat is commissioned. Meanwhile, automobile companies will also have to comply with tougher emission standards by April 2020, and other regulations which are expected to lead to higher demand for skilled labour. Roles in research and development and calibration are also expected to see an uptick in the next 12-18 months and will form about a quarter of the total hiring in the sector. Industry estimates showed that the top five automakers and component manufacturers together employ approximately 150,000 workers, including full-time and contract workers.

E-commerce giant Flipkart ranks at the top of LinkedIn’s fourth edition of Top Companies for in India.

The list celebrates the most sought-after places to work in the country. Flipkart had earlier topped the rankings in 2016 and 2017.

According to LinkedIn, the top companies list is based on feedback from LinkedIn’s more than 54 million users in India as well as “the billions of actions taken by LinkedIn members and looks at four main pillars: interest in the company, engagement with the company’s employees, job demand and employee retention.”

The top three companies were rounded out by Amazon and hospitality company Oyo.

Flipkart also outscored other gig-economy platforms on fairness of working conditions and wages in a recent study by the FairWork Foundation.

India’s aviation industry is set to have a skills shortage in 2019 as demand outstrips supply of talent, reports the Economic Times, citing data from Indian staffing firm TeamLease. The aviation sector is set to see a deficit of 500 pilots in 2019 against the 1,300 the airlines have on the roster now. There is a shortage of cabin crew as well – 1,350 short of the target 4,900. To handle duties on the ground, there are 9,200 staff, compared with the requirement of 15,800. “All three job roles (pilots, cabin and ground crew) are among the projected high-demand jobs in the Indian aviation industry,” Rituparna Chakraborty, co-founder of TeamLease, said. Paul Dupuis, managing director at Randstad India, also commented, “With most airlines in expansion mode and looking to add more than 100 aircraft through the end of 2020, we believe that the industry could add up to 18,000 jobs (direct and indirect) across levels and functions in the same time period.” Industry experts said because of the huge demand-supply mismatch, the employment scenario in the aviation sector will continue to be positive, though the ongoing crisis may create a short-term blip in hiring sentiment.

The pilots’ union of India’s troubled Jet Airways said on Sunday it will give the carrier’s new management two weeks to clear unpaid salaries, deferring its plan to take strike action.

Indebted Indian carrier Jet Airways will pay December salaries to pilots and aircraft maintenance engineers but for now cannot pay more recent overdue wages, its chief executive said on Saturday after pilots threatened to strike over payment delays.

The drill terrified teachers and left them with welts and bruises, the state’s largest teachers’ union said, calling for an end to such practices.

The Supreme Court set aside an Uttarakhand High Court judgment directing India’s government to regularise the services of several casual labourers working for the Border Roads Organisation which develops and maintains road networks in India’s border areas and friendly neighboring countries.

The regularisation of all casual paid workers would grant them benefits similar to regular employees.

The Deccan Herald reports that the Supreme Court has now allowed an appeal by India’s government against the Uttarakhand High Court’s judgement to regularise the casual workers.

A single-judge high court bench had, on a petition from the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), directed the government in March 2015 to regularise the workers.

The AITUC had argued that the casual labourers had worked for a long time on a single Border Roads Organisation project in Uttarakhand relating to a pilgrimage, but were being deprived of the salaries, perks and other benefits due to regular government employees.

The Court then directed the government to frame a scheme within three months to regularise all those who had worked for more than five years continuously with the Border Roads Organisation or the allied organisation, the General Reserve Engineering Forces. The court also ordered the government to pay them under the minimum pay scale for the corresponding pay scale of government employees, with all the benefits included.

According to the Telegraph India, the Supreme Court ruled that a “high court cannot frame a scheme for the government or direct it to frame one but only ask it to ‘consider’ framing a particular scheme.”

A bench of justices set aside the high court’s decision passed on 5 December 5, 2016, and said it is the sole prerogative of the government to frame schemes and that courts should stay out of governance.

“All the High Court, in exercise of its extraordinary power under Article 226 of the Constitution, can do is to direct the government to consider for framing an appropriate scheme,” Justice Abhay Manohar Sapre, who wrote the judgment for the Bench, said.

India’s Supreme Court stated, “Casual employment terminates when the same is discontinued, and merely because a temporary or casual worker has been engaged beyond the period of his employment, he would not be entitled to be absorbed in regular service or made permanent.”