Lean season for job hunters: TeamLease

Sangeeta Lala,senior vice president and co-founder,TeamLease Services,said that Pune,predominantly driven by IT,ITeS and manufacturing sectors,will see a 4 per cent dip in overall employment.

The good sign,she said,is a fall in attrition. It was around 14 per cent in Q3 and the EOR expects it to be around 9 per cent in the current quarter. “The companies can expect better productivity,” added Lala.

TeamLease releases the EOR every quarter after a survey conducted with HR managers and senior management of leading companies. The study for this EOR covered 620 companies with focus on employment growth potential,business outlook and hiring forecasts with relation to location and company profile.

As per Nupur Sharma,technical head at city based Global IT Consultancy,the employee requirements placed with her firm for IT professionals have gone down by over 15 per cent. She added that although there isn’t any increase in demand for positions in other sectors like FMCG,energy and automobiles,there has been no significant drop,either.

Deepak Nathani,COO,Cybage Software,said,“We are in the hiring process. But yes,considering the overall industry scenario,the number hired this year will be less than candidates hired in the corresponding quarter last year.”

Kishor Bhalerao,senior vice president,HR,Persistent Systems,said that the company is recruiting as per their yearly plan. The figures may be ‘marginally’ low and not ‘signficant’ as compared to last year. Some key highlights of the EOR suggest that IT hubs like Mumbai,Bangalore and Pune lose significantly on employment outlook index,-5,-4 and -4 point respectively. Pune has slipped 3 points on business outlook. Delhi is the only city to show a 3 point rise in employment outlook and 5 point rise in business outlook in the EOR.

Employers are in a choosy mode and are reviewing hired consultants,said Sheetal Khurana of Manage-O-Soft. She said that although there is a drop in employee requirements,employers have not frozen hiring in any sector. On the basis of requirements her company has received so far,Khurana said that as compared to sectors like IT,engineering,manufacturing,hotel and the travel industry,the requirements from the banking sector are on a low. On the positive side,she said there are a number of entry level openings in the retail sector. Even in the IT industry,as usual,the demand for junior posts is more than that for higher positions.

According to Dhanashree Pachade of Movericks Software Consultancy (MSC),the companies are still in recovery mode from the 2008 slowdown and instead of hiring,are depending on existing staff. The scrutiny that goes into shortlisting candidates has increased as firms want to be doubly sure of the employee and don’t want to repeat the recruitment cycle,said Pachade,recruitment head,MSC that primarily caters to IT firms. Despite the slump,she feels the recruitment will be better as compared to the corresponding quarter last year.

Director of Symbiosis Institute of Business Management (SIBM),Vivek Sane,said that varied companies have been coming to the institute for placement. “What is interesting is that different companies from different sectors,including pharmaceuticals,IT,retailing and B2B,have been coming to an MBA institute. It is quite a positive sign.” Ganesh Natrajan,CEO,Zensar Technologies,said that since the company’s growth in the previous year has been extremely good,it plans to go ahead with its regular recruitment process and the numbers are likely to increase.