ARTICLE · 25 NOVEMBER 2025

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Comparative Framework: How The New Labour Codes Differ From 29 Old Labour Laws

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In a transformative and long-anticipated development in India's employment law landscape, the Government of India has, through a series of notifications dated 21 November 2025, operationalised all four of the country's consolidated labour codes, ...

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In a transformative and long-anticipated development in India's employment law landscape, the Government of India has, through a series of notifications dated 21 November 2025, operationalised all four of the country's consolidated labour codes, the Code on Wages, 2019 (Wages Code), the Code on Social Security, 2020 (SS Code), the Industrial Relations Code, 2020 (IR Code), and the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 (OSH Code). This activation marks the single largest overhaul of labour legislation in independent India, replacing 29 Central labour enactments with a unified, streamlined, and contemporary regulatory framework.

The introduction of these codes represents a decisive shift from a historically fragmented compliance ecosystem, characterised by overlapping definitions, inconsistent thresholds and multiple, sector-specific statutes, to a harmonised structure intended to deliver clarity, reduce administrative burden and align

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