If you happen to read the year-end headlines in both HR and general publications, you may come across some curious contradictions. On December 30, 2006, FastPitch reported: “US jobs for India nurses: Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta is working with Miami-based Job2Career to recruit skilled nurses from India and help them transition their lives and careers to the United States. Due to the increasing nursing shortage, US hospitals are recruiting globally for nurses to supplement their staffing needs.”

The same day, Scarborough Today said: “Student nurses told their jobs will go: Student nurses at Scarborough Hospital (in the UK) are angry after being told they will have to quit their jobs at the end of March… A spokesman for the health trust which runs the hospital confirmed letters had been sent out but stressed that, if jobs arose, they would be “ring-fenced” for the students. Most of the nurses do not have jobs to go to and many were in tears over what was happening to them. They were told that, due to financial restraints, there would be no interviews for further employment at present but, should any arise, applications would be welcomed.”

If you look at some other headlines (see box), you will find a huge disparity in what’s happening in the West and elsewhere. If 10 jobs are lost in, say, Arizona, it makes front-page news. A plan to create a million jobs in India has to struggle for editorial space. A scheme to create 100,000 direct and ancillary jobs — as in the Tata Motors small car plant in West Bengal — is mired in controversy. Anywhere else in the world, both farmers and politicians of all hues would be salivating at the thought of some progress. Only in Bengal can it be converted into a political issue.

Bengal is tomorrow’s story, as it always will be. What is more of the moment is the story behind these headlines. “One thing is very obvious,” says Mumbai-based HR consultant D. Singh. “We are talking about job creation in huge numbers in India, China and some other Asian countries.”

The doomsayers feel that the numbers will not be adequate to cope with the population joining the labour market. Their fear is that skills will not match requirements. They have been saying that for a long time about IT and ITeS. But the talent crisis always seems to be coming; it is never actually there. HR professionals say that Indians are far more adaptable and quicker to learn than their western counterparts.

The second conclusion —though it is not immediately obvious — is that the quality of staff in India is of a far higher standard. Today, the shrill voices of the anti-outsourcing brigade seem to have converted the debate into one of cost. But talk to any MNC outsourcer and he will tell you that companies come to India because it is cheaper here. They stay because the quality of work is much better. You don’t need the morning mantras of Japanese companies or a large bouquet of perks as with US concerns. If Indian workers are given a chance to deliver, they do.

There are trends that can be read into all these developments. First, salaries will go up to match international standards. Second, there will be an influx of foreign workers to do the menial jobs. Third, most jobs will be in the services sector. But manufacturing will experience a big boom too.

Fourth, watch this space; there is a whole year to write about it.

MAKING NEWS

Headlines from the newspapers in December 2006

HERE…
• Indian government to train 1million people for jobs by 2012

• China’s Guangdong province wants to create a million jobs per year

• Vietnam creates 1.6 million new jobs in 2006

...AND THERE

• Two Fort Wayne companies to construct buildings, add 28 jobs

• Halifax firm invests £1 million and creates new 10 jobs

• Clarksdale laundry closes, 30 lose jobs

Source: The Internet