Reliance Industries cuts headcount

Reliance Industries is showing staff the door and is even mulling discretionary pay cuts.

Billionaire Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries has cut its headcount for third year in a row and is mulling a salary model where pay is based on accountability and responsibility of its staff.

After the job cuts,the company8217;s staff strength fell by 704 workers during the fiscal year ended March 31,2011,and stood at 22,661 employees.

RIL has disclosed its latest headcount in its 2010-11 annual report,where it also disclosed a new compensation model being mulled over at the company.

8220;FY-11,saw a significant change in the company8217;s compensation and banding management process. On the variable pay front,efforts are afoot to move towards accountability and responsibility driven variable pay programmes designed uniquely for various levels,8221; it added.

The company8217;s headcount stood at 23,365 employees at the end of fiscal ended March 31,20108211; during which its employee strength had fallen by 1314.

During the fiscal year 2008-09 also,the company8217;s headcount had fallen by 808 people.

RIL is one of the biggest employers among the non-IT private sector companies in the country and the company8217;s profitability has been on a sharp uptrend in recent years.

Story continues below this ad

During 2008-09,RIL8217;s total headcount had declined for the first time in six years,despite the company hiring more than 1,500 engineers that year.

The steepest fall so far has been in 2003-04,when the headcount fell from 12,915 to 11,358 employees.

During 2006-07 it rose by a massive 12,156 people while in 2007-08 the headcount rose by close to 791 employees.

Along with its subsidiaries such as Reliance Retail,the company had a total workforce in excess of 48,000 at the end of 2007-08,according to the company8217;s annual filing for that year for its shareholders.

Story continues below this ad

RIL has not disclosed specific numbers of employees of subsidiaries for the years 2008-09,2009-10 and 2010-11.

RIL8217;s average employee age stood at 41 years during 2010-11,unchanged from the level in previous fiscal.

The average age of employees at the company had increased from 34 years to 39 years during 2008-09.