Jobs claw back from the cold

Calcutta, Dec. 19: The QSQT – quarter se quarter tak – result of opportunities reveals that the leash on recruitment facing India Inc is loosening and there are jobs aplenty up for grabs.

The job-float figures for July to September, published by online recruitment portal, JobStreet.com, shows a “significant” rise in employment opportunities in a number of sectors like software, banking and financial services, healthcare and medical, call centres and IT enabled services (ITES).

“We keep track of the jobs floating in the various industry segments across the country through advertisements in leading publications and on the Net. The last quarter results show that manpower demand from the employers is clearly on the rise,” said N. Muralidharan, managing director, JobStreet.com.

With the business process outsourcing (BPO) activity taking off, a 7.69 per cent growth —the highest across all industry segments — in job availability was witnessed in ITES last quarter. “Companies like EXL Services, Spectramind, eServe and Dell International are in an expansion mode,” Muralidharan said.

The figures from the software industry indicate that the worst is over and it is appointment time for techies. Compared to 5,180 jobs available in the first quarter of 2002, the number was 19,150 between July and September. “The big league of IT companies comprising TCS, Wipro, Infosys and Satyam are all on a recruitment drive,” he added. But there is a rider: companies are cautious this time preferring “readymade” people and curbing “pre-hiring”.

Besides listing the number of openings available, the recruitment portal has also come up with the geographical distribution of opportunities. According to JobStreet, the epicentre of action in software is the south and to some extent west. In case of medical, health, banking and finance, west is far ahead and in case of engineering, some positive noises are heard from the south, primarily Chennai.

“Healthcare is another happening sector, which recorded a growth of 6.56 per cent in the last quarter. Corporates like Wockhardt, Max, P. D. Hinduja Group, Apollo Group have shown high recruitment growth and this is the segment to watch,” said Muralidharan.

Other sectors like advertisement, publishing, consulting, construction, education and restaurants have also posted a 10 per cent growth, the quarterly survey reveals.

But along with the surge in numbers, there are huge drops as well. Two most apparently active sectors — electronics and telecom — have shown negative trends in the last quarter. In the case of telecom, the drop is over 14 per cent and for the electronics industry, the numbers have nosedived by over 31 per cent.

“Though service providers like Reliance are adding huge numbers to their workforce, the other segments of the industry like equipment manufacturing, research and development have taken a back seat in the last quarter. Some companies have even stopped operations,” Muralidharan said.