Union Labour and Employment Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on 28 September called for continuous reskilling of Indian workers and a future-ready industrial relations system, warning that AI and automation will reshape workplaces at scale. He was inaugurating the CII National Conference on Industrial Relations and Labour Awards 2026 in New Delhi, held on the theme “Reengineering Industrial Relations and Workforce Participation in the Age of AI.”
The conference was organised jointly by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Employers’ Federation of India (EFI). Mandaviya said India’s labour and social security architecture must evolve in tandem with emerging economic realities, especially the opportunities AI opens up.
He also called for greater social dialogue between employers and workers, saying benefits of AI and automation had to be balanced with worker skills, safety, participation and welfare. Mandaviya said India should not fear the impact of AI on jobs, citing the experience of the country’s IT sector.
The minister recalled Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Independence Day address from the Red Fort in 2026, in which the government committed to training one crore youth in AI skills over the next year. He linked that target to the country’s Viksit Bharat 2047 goal, arguing that worker dignity and industry growth can advance together only if reskilling is treated as continuous rather than episodic.
Mandaviya also spoke about the four Labour Codes, calling them a modern pro-growth framework that simplifies compliance while strengthening worker protections. On the same day, the ministry launched a 90-day Shram Samvad campaign across 316 districts, aimed at consulting industry, chartered accountants, lawyers and other stakeholders on the codes’ rollout.
Industry attendees said the AI framing lands at a moment when large Indian IT firms and GCCs are already retooling headcount toward AI-implementation work. Whether the government follows up with a formal reskilling scheme tied to the Labour Codes will decide how much the message translates into HR budgets.
