Industry chamber FICCI said that India faces no immediate threat of large scale job layoffs by companies, a comment that is opposite to an assessment on job losses by another business body ASSOCHAM.

Seeking to allay fears of retrenchment, Mr Rajeev Chandrasekhar president of FICCI and member of Parliament said that "We do not believe that any immediate threats exist of the form that Assocham is alluding to. We should not panic."

Mr Chandrasekhar said that this is the time for cool heads and a well-planned strategy to protect our economy from any collateral damage from this international crisis and for putting growth back as the primary focus of government policy.

He said retrenchment in the current situation is not an option for companies.

Mr Chandrasekhar said that "This is because the country's labour laws prevent any sudden compression in the workforce... as far as management and officer-level people are concerned these are assets in which huge investments have been made over time. As a result laying off people would adversely affect the firms.”

Assocham said that India Inc is set to show pink slips to 25% to 30% employees in businesses like IT, aviation, steel, financial services, real estate, cement and construction as part of their cost-cutting measures.