1. Hiring at managerial, professional levels shrinking: Survey The Indian staffing sector is witnessing a contraction as companies recruiting at managerial and professional levels has decreased by over a third, a global survey says. According to the 13th Antal annual global snapshot, the Indian staffing sector is shrinking but going forward this space is set to rebound. The percentage of Indian employers currently hiring for managerial and professional positions now stands at 40 per cent, down 7 per cent below the global average, Antal said. The report further said although this is the lowest level in Asia, the signs are positive that this figure will climb to 43 per cent in the near future.
2. India, China tough markets for recruiters like Universum, Mahindra Satyam Employers around the world say that India and China are among the five most difficult markets to recruit talent highlighting the widely acknowledged skills gap that is prevalent in the region. Self-monitoring, intellectual curiosity, professionalism and confidence are some of the traits that prospective employees lack in India, according to the findings of a survey shared with TOI. The ability to differentiate from competition is the foremost challenge today for companies and will remain that way for the next three years as per findings by Universum, a global consulting firm that helps employers improve their attractiveness to prospective job seekers.
3. Infosys Plans to hike on-site wages by 2-3%; attrition stable at 15.1% After declaring its results for the third quarter of the current financial year, Infosys on Friday announced its intent to hike on-site wages by 2-3 per cent in the fourth quarter. The salary increments announced in the second quarter and the lethargic markets have managed to reign in on people leaving in IT giant. “We plan to give onsite wage increase of 2-3 per cent in Q4 … We added 7,500 employees gross this quarter. We are looking at promotions this quarter, 6,000 to 9,000 people,” Infosys CEO and Managing Director S D Shibulal said.Infosys was the only company among large software services firms which deferred salary hikes earlier in the year citing uncertain business environment. It, however, gave promotions to 20,000 employees. Attrition for the last 12 months for Infosys has remained stable at 15.1% for the quarter ended December. The previous quarter was 15% and in the same period last year the IT firm had an attrition rate of 15.4%.
4. How PSUs like NTPC, Coal India keep their staff in far-flung areas happy and productive WiFi hotspots and Cafe Coffee Day outlets within townships, jobs for qualified spouses, and extra leave — these are some of the carrots being dangled by public sector companies to cajole employees to work at remote sites. The tough task before the public sector companies is to control attrition that is highest at the entry and senior levels while adhering to government pay-structure. NTPC chairman and managing director Arup Roy Choudhary said young and middle aged employees are increasingly moving to low profile jobs in cities for a comfortable life though they are capable of managing projects in far-flung areas. The company is seking to upgrade all its townships with modern facilities such as Cafe Coffee Day and Haldiram outlets to give employees a city feel. All the company’s townships are Wi-Fi compatible. NTPC is also exploring tie-ups with coaching institutes like Super30 to prepare kids of employees for IIT-JEE entrances exams through web classes.
5. Attrition, retirements trim SBI workforce The country’s largest lender State Bank of India, which has hired over 25,000 in the last three years, has seen its overall staff strength fall by 7,500 in March 2012 due to a surge in retirements and a 15% attrition among new hires. This has prompted the bank to hire another 10,000 employees by March 2013. According to data released by the Reserve Bank of India, the banking industry has added 42,000 jobs in FY12 taking the total number of people employed directly in banks past the million mark to 10.13 lakh. The only two segments that have seen a decline are foreign banks, which have seen a marginal drop of 300 jobs, and SBI group where overall staff strength has fallen by over 3,000. The reduction in jobs has resulted in the growth in SBI’s wage costs easing to a single digit.
6. Greece unemployment hits highest rate in European Union The latest unemployment rate for Greece has risen to 26.8%, the highest figure recorded in the European Union (EU). The Greek economy remains mired in recession and the government is in the process of imposing significant austerity measures. Athens is cutting spending to meet the terms of its financial bailouts. So far, the European Central Bank, International Monetary Fund, and the European Commission have pledged a total of 240bn euros ($315bn; £196bn) in rescue loans, of which Greece has received more than two thirds.
7. 24,000 offers for campus placements: Tata Consultancy Services Tata Consultancy Services said it has given campus offers to 24,000 people, who will be joining the organisation in 2013-14. “We had said we would hire 25,000 from campuses in the next fiscal (2013-14). We have already rolled 24,000 offers, who will join the company starting July,” company’s Executive Vice-president and Global Head for Human Resources Ajoy Mukherjee told reporters. The company has, however, not set a target for the overall hiring for the next fiscal. “We have hired almost 50,000 professionals in the first three quarters of this financial year to support business growth and we continue to forecast a healthy growth in the workforce numbers going forward,” Mukherjee said. He said against the target of hiring 50,000 people in the ongoing financial year, the company has already added 49,600 people in the past three quarters.
8. Students with prior work experience preferred in IIM placements this year Early data trickling in from the ongoing lateral placements in at least eight IIMs suggest that, company’s like Google are braving the economic slowdown to pick up professionals.”In difficult economic conditions, laterals hit the road running very fast,” says Ganesh Shermon, KPMG India partner and country head (human capital). “They have a faster learning curve, easier socialisation, quicker turnaround time, easy adaptability and good people skills. Plus, attrition is lower.”
9. 4.4 million IT jobs creation globally to support big data by 2015: Gartner IT industry would see creation of 4.4 million jobs globally by 2015 to support big data, but only one-third of the jobs will be filled because there is not enough talent, according to IT research and advisory firm Gartner. It also said the IT spending is forecast to surpass USD 3.7 trillion in 2013, a 3.8 % increase from the current year projected spending of USD 3.6 trillion. “By 2015, 4.4 million IT jobs globally will be created to support big data, generating 1.9 million IT jobs in the United States,” said Peter Sondergaard, Senior Vice-President at Gartner and Global Head of Research.
10. Employee referrals are emerging as an efficient sourcing tool Experts at the recently conducted TimesJobs.com Boardroom Dialogue emphasised on the fact that internal employee referrals are bringing in stellar talent with high loyalty quotient. Discussing this trend, Amaresh Singh, country HR director, Alstom stated, “Our employees are our consultants. We do 56% of our recruitment through employee referrals.” Employee referrals are more trustworthy and help hire good quality skills in the system. The widespread appeal of employee referrals among the HR fraternity can be attributed to its ability to identify and source the best talent even amongst the passive category. Experts have claimed that employee referral schemes have helped them enhance the retention levels and mitigate recruitment costs.
Author: Rahul Sharma
Refrence: Economic Times, BBC News, Times of India