India sets salary floor to limit migrant workers

In a bid to address India’s worsening unemployment problem, the Indian government has ruled that it will issue employment visas only to migrant workers hired for highly skilled jobs that earn an annual salary of over US$25,000.

The new policy was announced in a release by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), as reported by the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA).

The DFA said India’s Ministry of Home Affairs has decided that employment visa will not be issued to routine jobs that can be filled by qualified Indian nationals, such as secretaries and clerks.

The department clarified, however, that the precondition of an annual salary of US$25,000 will not apply to ethnic cooks, language teachers (other than English teachers), and to those working for foreign embassies in India.

Along with the new salary policy, India also scrapped a Labor Ministry circular allowing only “one per cent foreigners among the total work force in any project composed of 5-10 people.”

The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency’s The World Factbook website estimated that in 2009, unemployment rate in India was 10.7 percent, up from 10.4 percent in 2008.

In 2009, some 1,010 Filipino workers were deployed to India in the professional, medical and technical fields, according to records from the POEA.

The Commission on Filipinos Overseas meanwhile estimates that as of December 2009, there were over 1,600 Filipinos in India as permanent residents, and as temporary and irregular workers.—Jerrie Abella/DM, GMANews.TV