Ranchi: Labour reforms have become important as India would require millions of skilled labour in the next 10 years, which calls for investments in the employment generating sectors, experts said today.

"Labour reforms should have started alongside economic reforms in the 1990s, but we are still working with old archaic labour laws...(and) labour reforms are required to attract investors in the employment generating sectors," Senior Vice President-HR, Aegis India, Vivek Kumar said.

He was speaking at the Human Resource conclave here on "Turning the tide on unrest in the workforce" organised by the Indian Institute of Management, Ranchi.

Stating that the current labour laws have failed to attract foreign investments in employment generation sectors, Kumar said industries preferred "flexible laws", which has become a key factor for industrial growth.

Advocating reforms in the Industrial Disputes Act, Sujit Sen, Advisor-HR, WEBCON, stressed upon educating both management and union leaders about labour laws.

Delving on the subject, other speakers also touched upon various issues like requirement of 500 million skilled jobs in the country in the next 10 years and contractual labour being used in non-core areas by many industries.