JAIPUR: The process of jewellery making was always a men’s domain. But this is changing now. With the demand for artificial and fashion jewellery growing, jewellers are now pinning hopes on women to fill the gap in labour supply.
Over the past few months, Sitapura Gems and Jewellery Industries Association has trained and absorbed over 250 women in the core manufacturing process. The target is to skill and employ 2000but the Covid protocol of working at reduced capacity has slowed down training and deployment. Gaurav Jain, president of Sitapura Gems and Jewellery Association said, “Earlier, women were working as operators or designers. Now, we are preparing them in all the processes of manufacturing, including craftsmanship which was dominated by men.”
He said in other countries like in Europe and China, a lot of women are engaged in the sector in all kinds of jobs roles. “They are highly skilled and as good as men, and sometimes better. We cannot always demand on workers from West Bengal because it has a limitation. That’s why the new women labour pool is very important for us.” Traditionally, security, systems and processes were major issues why women were not preferred in the core manufacturing. But companies have devised ways to mitigate the challenges.
“Because we never focused on women, the infrastructure, systems and processes were not there. Since we cannot allow them with their traditional attire, the factories are giving dresses and created changing room facilities. Secondly, the focus is to have women from nearby areas so that they do not have to spend much time on traveling, given they are required to do other household jobs,” added Jain.
Currently, 150-200 women are under the training process. The number of factories showing interest to hire women are growing. Most women labourers or crafts persons are engaged in artificial and fashion jewellery segment because the sector is growing fast and order pipeline is growing robust.
“The system is working out well. More and more companies are willing to hire women for the core manufacturing jobs because the fashion jewellery segment requires more labour and the demand for products is also increasing. We do not have large training facilities but by the end of December this year, the factories would have hired 500 trained women,” added Jain.
