India’s state government of Karnataka, home to India’s tech hub Bengaluru, has approved a bill mandating companies give 50%-70% of jobs to locals, a move that could make it harder for global firms operating there to attract talent. Bengaluru is home to about 14 million people, and thousands of Indian startups and international firms ranging from Walmart to Alphabet’s Google operate from the metropolitan city in south India. Infosys and Wipro – two Indian tech giants – also operate from the city.
The draft bill, seen by Reuters, requires employers to give 50% of management jobs and 70% of non-management jobs to local candidates. The bill will need clearance of state legislature to become law.
Industry leaders criticised the bill, saying it would discriminate against those from outside the state who want to work there. “There must be caveats that exempt highly skilled recruitment from this policy,” said Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, executive chairperson at drugmaker Biocon.
Mohandas Pai, chairman of Aarin Capital Partners and former finance chief at Infosys, wrote in a social media post: “The bill should be junked. It is discriminatory, regressive and against the constitution.” IT industry body Nasscom also urged the state government to withdraw the bill.
The state of Karnataka is led by the opposition Congress party which has criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government for doing too little to tackle joblessness. Karnataka is not the first Indian state to try to impose job quotas for local candidates. The northern state of Haryana in 2020 tried to impose a 75% job quota for local hires, but a court later overturned it. “For a few years now, the sentiment in some urban parts of the state has been for greater local protectionism – from bigger nameboards in Kannada to higher job reservations,” said political analyst Sandeep Shastri. “This move, to privilege locals, is a response to this sentiment.”
