Leather is the skin of animals used to protect the man from the disaster of weather since a long time. The only difference is that today necessity has took the shape of fashion also. The process of the conversion of skin and hide into leather is very technical especially that process carried out in today’s time. Thus, special training is granted for attaining best outcome and that is termed as Leather Technology. It is very callous and cluttered training. So, those who acquired it properly get the dignified jobs in highly reputed firms, government organizations and export houses.

India is one of the leading producers of leather goods. Specially, numerous factories are situated in Kanpur and Kolkata serves as a main supplier of leather goods. Leather industries of India give a turnover of about Rs. 70 billion per annum.

Nature of Work:

Entire functioning of Leather industry can be divided into two main sections –

· Processing of raw leather into furnished leather ready for manufacturing industries

· Designing, marketing and production of furnished leather goods like garments and accessories.

Leather Tanning

Leather is the outcome of processing over skin and hide of animals in tanneries. Especially hides and skins of buffaloes, cows, pigs, goats and horses are used for this purpose. The skin is made prepared for tanning by giving it pretreatment like removal of redundant flesh, hairs from the skin and is cured with salt. For giving leather its flexibility, tanning agents bond together the protein fibers in the skin.

Leather technology

Production, research and quality control, leather product manufacturing and marketing and sales are the field in which leather technologists are trained.

Employment Avenues

Footwear, leather products and leather garments manufacturing companies hires leather technologists. These leather technologists have bright future as at present export of leather products are rising day-by-day. They have great opportunities of bright future in form of entrepreneurship and also they can be self-employed as a manufacturer of leather items.