DUBAI|THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Dubai debt crisis fuelled fears of job cuts and its adverse fallout on remittance-dependent economy in Kerala but India on Sunday said there was no need to panic confident it will blow over. Kerala finance minister T M Thomas Isaac said he is very “anxious” about the possible slowdown in construction activity in the Gulf following the crisis which could badly affect workers from the state. Over two million migrants from Kerala are working in the Gulf. “A majority of workers in the construction sector in the Gulf are from Kerala. We are really anxious about their future,” Isaac told PTI in Thiruvananthapuram.

The Indian government said it was closely tracking the fall-out of the crisis in Dubai and directed its missions in the region to provide all necessary help the vulnerable section of the Indian workforce in the Gulf who may be affected by the crisis.

Overseas Indian affairs minister Vayalar Ravi calmed the anxieties in India saying Government was not anticipating a surge of returnees to the country from the region as it was confident that the current crisis will blow over because it was much lesser in magnitude compared to the worst period of the global financial meltdown.

“There is no need for undue panic. We are closely monitoring the situation. The crisis had actually started one year back,” Ravi told PTI. The Gulf Emirate’s $60 billion debt woes have sent shock waves around the world.
Ravi’s sentiments were shared by his colleague and Minister of state for Railways E Ahamed.

“There was no room for any panic on the fallout of Dubai’s trouble on India either as the country’s economy was robust as it had proved during the global recession last year,” he said.

Lakhs of workers from India are employed in realty and other sectors in Dubai and other Middle East cities and their families are dependent on remittances. Indians form 42.3% of the population of Dubai. Allaying fears of an exodus of migrant workforce and large scale job losses, India’s consulate in Dubai said the debt crisis had no direct impact on the country and there was no need to panic. “We are confident the government of Dubai and the UAE are fully capable of handling the short-term crisis faced by Dubai World,” India’s Consul General Venu Rajamony told PTI in Dubai.

Indian businessmen and analysts on the ground also said the world was overreacting to the crisis. Local Indian businessmen said it is too early to judge the impact on remittances, redundancies and Read more…

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MUMBAI: IT company Mahindra Satyam plans to appoint 1,000 freshers by December 15, a top company official said.

“The process is on and we will give appointment letters to 1,000 freshers out of the 8,000 selected during campus recruitment by December 15,” Mahindra Satyam’s Chief People Officer Hari Thalapalli told reporters on the sidelines of a conference here today.

He, however, said that the company might not call all of Read more…

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BANGALORE: Indian IT service firms are looking to throw open their gates yet again to prospective employees as the gloom of the global recession lifts from the $60 billion industry and demand for outsourcing services improves.

This is in stark contrast to the scenario a few months back when most of them had frozen salaries, promotions and, in some cases, saw their first ever declines in quarterly headcount additions. The sector, which employs more than 2 million people, has been one of the biggest job creators in Asia’s third-largest economy and used to hire people by thousands every quarter, mostly engineering graduates.

India’s top two IT service firms Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys, each of which employ more than 100,000, used to shower employees with hefty pay hikes and perks not too long ago to keep their staff from being poached by bigger rivals such as IBM and Accenture.

“There is some confidence back in the system,” V. Balakrishnan, CFO of Infosys Technologies said at the Reuters India Investment Summit in Bangalore. “Most of the corporates are feeling much better about the economy now than they were some six to eight months back.”

Infosys, India’s second-largest software services exporter, last month raised its hiring target to 20,000 for the fiscal year that ends in March, up from its earlier forecast of 18,000, and Balakrishnan said it wanted to be well-oiled when growth returns.

Infosys, which had earlier put a hold on salary hikes and promotions for this fiscal year, said it would raise pay by an average of 8 percent this year for its employees in India. “In the beginning of the year, the environment was so challenging that we said we won’t give any wage increase for the year, and we also stopped all promotions. We had some buffer on the margins so we gave the wage increase,” Infosys’ Balakrishnan said.

Wipro Ltd, India’s No 3 software services firm, also said the IT industry was back to being bullish about its hiring outlook. “The recovery is still taking place. It’s still very slow. But I think customers have decided to move on and make things happen,” Wipro’s joint CEO of IT business Suresh Vaswani said. Wipro’s CFO of IT business Manish Dugar said there would be headcount growth going forward.

“But I don’t know if we’ll have proportionate increase in headcount to the revenue.” Wipro also said it will announce a decision on wage increases during the course of this quarter. Mahindra Satyam, earlier known as Satyam Computer Services that was rocked by India’s biggest corporate fraud, is also looking to hire people and reinstating various employee benefits.

The company currently has a “virtual pool” of about 5,000 employees, who are not actively involved on any outsourcing project and are on reduced salaries. On Monday, Tata Consultancy Services, India’s top outsourcing company, had said the company was likely to increase wages in the next fiscal year.

The change of sentiment in the Indian IT sector gives millions Read more…

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NEW DELHI: Unlike the jobless recovery of the developed world, the Indian economy is creating opportunities as it shrugs off the effects of the slowdown.

The government data shows that sectors such as textiles, automobiles, and IT/BPO, among others, generated around 5 lakh jobs in the July-September quarter this fiscal.

Meanwhile, the public sector banks are getting ready to spread the cheer as they embark on a large-scale recruitment drive in a bid to replace their estimated 40% of their workforce that retires over the next two years.

Currently, there are about 8 lakh people employed in public banks across the country, as per industry estimates.
With about 3.2 lakh employees set to retire by 2011-12, there will be a large number of positions vacant in these banks.

Although not all the slots will be filled, banks are looking to spruce up hiring at all levels and the number will be significant, said senior executives in the banking industry.

MD Mallya, CMD, Bank of Baroda (BOB), said: “We are looking to add talent for two reasons. One, we need manpower to facilitate our expansion plans and two, there will be quite a few slots vacant with senior employees retiring over the next two years.”

Mr Mallya added that the bank plans to add about 1500-2000 heads in the current fiscal itself.
The country’s largest bank State Bank Of India (SBI) is hiring more than 13,000 people in the current fiscal.

However, hiring may not be in direct proportion to the number retiring. Said Bank of Maharashtra CMD Allen Pereira: “We will hire in sizeable number. But not all the positions that fall vacant will get filled up as some jobs get eliminated as a result of improved technologies over the years.”

The global meltdown that shook the financial sector last year and cause developed world to slump into recession caused serious demand drop for India’s exports sector and large-scale job losses. In April-June 2009 quarter job loses were placed 1.3 lakh.

The strong recovery in jobs in the last quarter has taken the net job additions over the 12 months ending September 2009 to a positive 1.5 lakh, limited survey by the government has revealed.

“The stimulus packages given out by the government helped increase liquidity, thereby stimulating production and consumption. Read more…

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MUMBAI: With the global economy gradually bouncing back, the IT job market is also picking up and 2-2.5-lakh jobs in the sector are likely to be up for grabs, a top Infosys official said on Wednesday.

“The job scenario is improving…This year the market is likely to see around 2-2.5-lakh jobs,” said Infosys director-human resources Mohandas Pai.

The IT jobs market will, however, not be the same as it was two years ago, but will also not be as bad as it was last year, Mr Pai said, adding that the fresher-lateral hiring ratio is likely to be around 65:35% this year. Two years ago, there were 3-4 lakh jobs available in the IT market, Mr Pai pointed out.

The industry has witnessed a lower growth rate in the past 18 months, Mr Pai said, adding that the market is not so open now.

Infosys has plans to hire around 20,000, he said, adding that, however, campus recruitments will be lower this year as Read more…

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NEW DELHI/KOLKATA: As the economy rebounds and hiring begins to pick up pace, companies are going to unprecedented lengths with sweeping background checks of prospective employees. The scope of pre-employment screening, which has been traditionally limited mainly to senior executives and involved basic searches to verify the accuracy of the resume, the educational background and biographical data, is now getting vastly expanded. All job applicants, not just those at senior levels, are being scrutinised with a fine toothcomb. And almost no area is off limits.

While false claims about education and employment are among the main triggers for rejection, some job applicants have been tripped up by their personal lives. One such was denied a job after an agency specialising in background verification discovered that the individual was having an extra-marital affair. The agency asked the prospective employer, a multinational company, to put the application on hold by filing a ‘pink’ report and the employer obliged.

“In our lingo, green means a go-ahead, pink is doubtful and red signifies rejection,” said SK Sharma, group director-HR at PremierShield, a security solutions company that carries out background checks on behalf of corporates. A red flag can be activated by a number of other factors: criminal history, substance abuse, a poor credit track record or even dodgy equity trading. While former colleagues, classmates and those living in the applicant’s neighbourhood are tapped for information, some agencies go even further.

PremierShield admits to setting up sting operations to test for ethics and some companies infiltrate staff into the organisation where the applicant is working to gather information about the prospective employee’s conduct with colleagues, especially women.

Arun Bhagat, vice-president, HR, with infrastructure group GMR said he visits colleges and universities and at least two past employers to do reference checks of candidates. It recently sacked an employee just days after he joined after it was discovered that he had falsified some documents. “For key roles in finance and at executive levels, we make discreet enquiries on the reliability of the professional, his reputation in and outside the organisation and even carry out a search on the internet,” he said.

Mr Bhagat insists that the checks are carried out with the consent of the prospective employee. Software and back-office service providers were among the first to make background checks mandatory for all potential hires. Many IT companies and HR consultants like Ma Foi engage firms such as First Advantage, PP Verify, PremierShield, Onicra, Authbridge for pre-employment screening, which can cost between Rs 1,000 and Rs 5,000 per employee.

Pinkerton Consulting & Investigations India, a detective agency, which undertakes screening for several multinational firms, found in a recent survey for IT and IT-enabled Services providers that about 4,000 companies, universities and institutes of dubious background were providing fake documents. Pradeep Bahirwani, vice-president (talent acquisition) at Wipro said that in the IT industry the average percentage of fake resumes is 20-30%. “Based on preventive and corrective actions less than 1% of the total active applications we receive would be fake,” he added.

Among other sectors, the financial services industry, which Read more…

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KOLKATA: Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (IIM-C) on Wednesday said that the second PGPEX-VLM programme batch was fully placed.

Out of 29 offers, there were two international offers, five offers from consulting firms and the rest was a mixed bag. The firms included, Crompton, McNallyBharat, Cummins, Hewlett-Packard, Read more…

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NEW DELHI: For someone who aspires for a hole-in-one as an amateur golfer, Adit Mathur has made a Tiger Woodsian debut on the job circuit.
The 20-year-old undergrad of Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC) is now the toast of Delhi University (DU) as he has teed in an offer from Deutsche Bank for an annual compensation package of Rs 32 lakh ($69,000). Mathur, a resident of Civil Lines in Delhi, will be trained in London next year for a plum posting abroad.

The size of the offer made to a student from DU is what has made the cheerful difference to the ritual of foreign banks picking up students from Indian institutions, as such handsome offers are the perquisite of IITs and IIMs. The highest that a DU student has got in the past is Rs 14 lakh from Lehman Brothers in 2007.

However, that single spectacular difference has disrupted the private life of Adit, who is desperately staying clear of the media glare. The pleasantly surprised son of Prof Anita Mathur, who also teaches in the same college, has been the first pick of first timer Deutsche from DU. An avid sports enthusiast Adit’s father is the COO of GMR Sports which owns Delhi Daredevils.

“It was completely unexpected. I couldn’t prepare much in advance, but brushing up the basics helped a lot,” Adit told ET. He is flying off to London next July for the Graduate Analyst Training Programme, where he will interact with several other students from across the globe.

Undergrad nets Rs 32 lakh offer from Deutsche Bank

25 Nov 2009, 0705 hrs IST, Mahima Puri & Shreya Biswas, ET Bureau

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NEW DELHI: For someone who aspires for a hole-in-one as an amateur golfer, Adit Mathur has made a Tiger Woodsian debut on the job circuit. Top 10 paymasters
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The 20-year-old undergrad of Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC) is now the toast of Delhi University (DU) as he has teed in an offer from Deutsche Bank for an annual compensation package of Rs 32 lakh ($69,000). Mathur, a resident of Civil Lines in Delhi, will be trained in London next year for a plum posting abroad.

The size of the offer made to a student from DU is what has made the cheerful difference to the ritual of foreign banks picking up students from Indian institutions, as such handsome offers are the perquisite of IITs and IIMs. The highest that a DU student has got in the past is Rs 14 lakh from Lehman Brothers in 2007.

However, that single spectacular difference has disrupted the private life of Adit, who is desperately staying clear of the media glare. The pleasantly surprised son of Prof Anita Mathur, who also teaches in the same college, has been the first pick of first timer Deutsche from DU. An avid sports enthusiast Adit’s father is the COO of GMR Sports which owns Delhi Daredevils.

“It was completely unexpected. I couldn’t prepare much in advance, but brushing up the basics helped a lot,” Adit told ET. He is flying off to London next July for the Graduate Analyst Training Programme, where he will interact with several other students from across the globe.

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Deutsche’s routemap to SRCC may have its beginnings in IIMs as the bank, according to Adit, has a feeling for students from the B-school who have moved from the college. He also said the size of the package is quite justified, considering it’s an international location and involves high costs.

So far, SRCC has placed 40 undergrads and 14 post graduate students from its Global Business Operations course. Some 44 companies have already visited SRCC, some of whom are returning after a year’s break. Mazars, a Paris-based audit firm with offices in 77 countries, is also in Delhi for the first time to recruit students and is expected to pick up a few of them.

SRCC is not the only college basking in the hiring glory. Neither is Adit the only student. A student from St Stephen’s College, Sukrit, too has got a similar offer from Deutsche Bank.

The campuses at Kirori Mal College (KMC), Sri Venkateswara College (Venky), Lady Shri Ram College for Women (LSR) too have been lit up by the happy visits of hiring personnel.

For instance, placement chairpersons at DU colleges say that companies like Google, Deloitte, McKinsey, Bain & Co, YES Bank, HCL, Wipro are regular recruiters. Others like Ernst & Young, KPMG, UBS, Jaypee Group and Infraline are some of the newcomers Read more…

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Employers complain that they’re having trouble finding qualified candidates for open positions. So why don’t they offer more $?

Search professionals tell me that the law of supply and demand govern IT salaries. When times are good and good talent is hard to find, IT salaries rise. When times are tough and the labor market is saturated with unemployed IT professionals competing for a handful of open positions, salaries plummet. It’s the classic buyers’ market vs. sellers’ market paradigm.

I’m not convinced, however, that the laws of supply and demand as they relate to IT salaries are functioning in today’s employment market. Sure, IT salaries are down from a year ago because the recession has forced companies to institute pay cuts and because employers are offering lower salaries to prospective employees, according to various research, including Computerworld’s 2009 IT Salary Survey.

But there’s evidence that IT professionals hunting for new jobs are rejecting these lower salaries that prospective employers are offering.

“There are a lot of low compensation opportunities that candidates just can’t resign themselves to,” says Nancy Keene, a director in executive search firm Stanton Chase International’s Dallas office.

This is one reason employers are having such a hard time filling open positions: They can’t find candidates who meet all of their (dare I say, unrealistic) requirements and who’ll work for between 10 and 30 percent less than what they earned in the past.

I laud the IT professionals who are not compromising on their value and who are rejecting insulting job offers. It takes chutzpah to slide that employment agreement back to the HR or hiring manager without signing on the dotted line, especially if you’re unemployed.

If companies can’t fill their open positions because their job offers are too low, why aren’t salaries going up? You’d think the law of supply and demand would start changing the dynamics.

I see two reasons why compensation isn’t going up yet. One, there are probably still more job seekers who are accepting low offers than job seekers who are rejecting them. I hate to see people settle for less than what they’re worth, but in these times, I can’t blame them for doing so.

The other reason is that employers are content to wait. Their hiring budgets have yet to thaw, and employers remain anxious about the economy. In light of their uncertainty, they’re not rushing to fill positions.

“Hiring managers who’ve been getting by without that position are saying, ‘what’s another month, what’s another two months’ of waiting,” says Keene. “Now in the fourth quarter, Read more…

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NEW DELHI: Domestic brokerage firm SMC Group today said it plans to hire 3,000 professionals and open 3,500 offices in the next three years to expand network in the country.

The company would invest Rs 50 crore in expansion plans. “We are in process to expand our network by adding 3,500 offices to reach across the country over the next three years. We need a strong team of professionals and for this we will be hiring about 3,000 people during the period,” SMC Group CMD Subhash Chand Aggarwal told PTI.

At present, the Delhi-based financial solutions provider has a network of over 1,500 offices spread over 375 towns in the country. The current workforce of the group is about 7,000 serving over five lakh customers.

Aggarwal said the expansion plan would cost over Rs 50 Read more…

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