Chennai: L&T Chairman and Managing Director SN Subrahmanyan on Tuesday said that IT engineers were reluctant to relocate. Speaking at the 'Mystic South Global Linkages Summit 2025' conference here, Subrahmanyan said, "Today, there is a situation where employees have to travel to different parts of the world for assignments and business. Similarly, there is a need to work abroad and in other cities away from home town."
"However, many workers do not want to migrate for work. This is a unique problem. India is currently facing this problem. It is especially hampering large-scale infrastructure projects like roads and power plants that are crucial for national development," he added.
Subrahmanyan also spoke about the increasing challenges in the IT and Construction sector in India.
"Due to high attrition rates, L&T has to hire about 1.6 million workers every year. Recruitment and information about job opportunities now reach workers faster through digital communication devices than through channels. However, mobilising the required workers remains a big challenge," he added.
"The reason for the reluctance of workers to migrate is government schemes like 'Jan Dhan' accounts, direct benefit transfers, 'Garib Kalyan Yojana' and MGNREGA. These schemes help workers to keep their income stable. And they think that it is a place they are very familiar with, so why should they bother moving to another city? This is why many people are reluctant to leave their hometowns for work," he added.
"Beyond construction workers, there is a similar trend among engineering graduates, especially those working in fields like information technology. Unlike previous generations, many young professionals today are very reluctant to migrate for work," he added.
"When we worked, engineers would work in different cities. This increased their work capacity and skills. But today's generation has largely reduced the number of jobs they do in different places. This leads to a shrinking of talent in one place. They are also reluctant to bring their skills out. These changes are now more visible in IT. More experienced workers or seniors struggle more to understand the trends of the younger generation," Subramanian added. Various entrepreneurs participated and spoke in the conference hosted by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).
Recently, the L&T Chairman sparked a row after he said how much one can stare at his wife on Sundays and advocated for a 90-hour work week.
