New Labour Codes (November 2025) read with the Compliance Handbook (February 2026) uploaded by the Ministry of Labour and Employment
The Government of India has made the following four (4) Labour Codes effective from November 21, 2025:
- The Code on Wages, 2019;
- The Code on Social Security, 2020;
- The Occupational Safety, Health (OSH) and Working Conditions Code, 2020; and
- Industrial Relations Code, 2020.
These codes replace 29 existing central labour laws and are applicable across the nation.
To provide much needed clarity, a Compliance Handbook has been uploaded by the Ministry of Labour and Employment in February 2026 as a practical explainer of how the four Labour Codes re‑engineer India’s Central labour law regime for employers. The Handbook is explicitly non‑interpretative and flags that the Codes themselves prevail in case of discrepancy, inviting users to treat it as a reference aid rather than an authority. On substance, the Handbook walks through the compliance architecture of each of the 4 Codes (Supra).
Re – Code on Wages, 2019 – The Handbook highlights universal minimum wages, non‑discrimination in pay, strict timelines for wage payments (including settlement within two working days on exit), regulation of working hours and overtime, and detailed record‑keeping and notice‑board disclosures, with tightly controlled categories and caps for wage deductions and a bonus range.
Re – The Industrial Relations Code, 2020 – The Handbook talks about Works Committees under this Code in larger industrial establishments, a streamlined standing orders regime keyed to Model Standing Orders, structured safeguards around lay‑off, retrenchment and closure (including compensation and notice obligations) as well as a schedule of “conditions of service” that cannot be altered without due notice.
Re – The OSH and Working Conditions Code, 2020 – This Code is framed as the safety and welfare backbone, unifying 13 sectoral laws into a single registration, licensing and standards regime for factories, mines, docks, construction, transport and allied sectors, generally above a 10‑worker threshold. It emphasizes employer duties to implement notified safety and health standards, ensure hygiene, welfare and medical facilities, report notifiable occupational diseases, and adopt heightened safeguards for women (particularly for night work and hazardous processes) etc.
Re – The Code on Social Security, 2020 – This Code is mapped through its First Schedule, which sets out applicability thresholds for EPF (20+ employees), ESIC (10+ employees or hazardous occupations), gratuity and maternity benefit (factories, mines, plantations and shops/establishments), employees’ compensation (for those outside ESIC), and building and other construction workers’ social security and cess, while also referencing social security for unorganised, gig and platform workers.
I strongly believe compliance will be of utmost importance from an organizational standpoint, since this Handbook (specifically at Chapter 7 condenses all Codes into monthly, annual and event‑triggered action points for employers including but not limited to registration, licenses, constitution of committees, display and register obligations, wage and contribution cycles, returns and renewals, thereby, anchoring complex statutory duties in a time‑based compliance view.
