People Matters, 5th April 2013
There is always a lag between the economic direction and the impact on jobs in the industry. The country’s political landscape experienced some upheavals in the first half of last year, but its impact was felt on the jobs landscape only in the latter half.
The phenomenon of jobless growth has hit the IT and IT-services sectors quite hard due to rising cost pressures and the threat of global competition from other economies including the Philippines. The sector is trying hard to rationalize their headcount costs by focusing on productivity. This sentiment seems to reflect in all other sectors of the Indian economy, resulting in some of the largest recruiters hiring very cautiously.
Financial services, including the banking sector, however, is seeing a different trend. Unlike other sectors, the organizations are creating jobs closer to the actual customer locations. As a result, the economy is seeing a number of jobs being created in places like Bihar, Gujarat and Jharkhand. Also, these institutions are reaching out to not just Tier I and Tier II educational colleges for talent, but also to Tier III and Tier IV institutions. The industrial sector, other than automobiles, will add jobs to the economy in the coming times, as the government takes some positive steps towards calming the uncertainty. There is a great need of having the last-mile connectivity of the national skilling agenda with the industry itself. Sales, customer service and nursing are some occupations that are seeing a lot of employment demand, but skilling in these areas seems to lack last-mile connectivity.