LPG crisis fuels labour crunch, industry's hiring cost up 15%

“We do blue-collar hiring, mainly in the manufacturing and supply chain sectors, and there, the costs of getting workforce in the metros has gone up by about 15-20% in a month,” said Neeti Sharma, chief executive officer of TeamLease Digital, part of the staffing firm TeamLease Group.Scarcity of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) has forced construction and manufacturing sectors' blue-collared workers—scaffolders, plumbers, welders, etc.—back to their hometowns and villages.Radheshyam and four others together iron clothes in south Mumbai. These migrant workers from Rae Bareli, Uttar Pradesh, together typically use one LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) cylinder for a little over a month.

“A cylinder costs us ₹1,000, but yesterday I bought it for ₹5,000," he said. “Many of my neighbours, who work as labourers, have returned to their villages.

We have managed to get the cylinder this time. But going ahead, we don’t know…”Upcoming assembly polls in four states—Assam, Kerala, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu—was yet another push factor for many from these states to be home, hiring firms said.Ironically, this tightness in labour supply comes even as many blue-collar workers' plans to work in West Asia—the Gulf Cooperation Council, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia—getting disrupted due to the war.Sachin Chhabra, founder and chief executive at Nia.one, a platform that provides living facilities, food and other essential support services for migrant workers, said they are indeed returning to their hometowns."Workers have been complaining and struggling to meet food costs.