Top-of-the-mind question: How’s the white collar job market? Answer: Depends on which white collar job market you are talking about.
Four realities define employment prospects of India’s educated workforce
POST-GRADUATE DELIVERY BOYS Here’s a sobering reality about the entry-level white collar job market: The young person who delivered a book or biryani to your doorstep is a post-graduate. Post-graduates and graduates as delivery staff for online merchants number close to 25,000, according to staffing firm TeamLease. These are young Indians who have waited… and waited… for an ‘office job’, not found any, and taken what’s available.
The big question for India’s graduates is: When will jobs that ‘match’ their qualifications be available again. HR and industry observers say the renewed mandate for Bharatiya Janata Party offers political stability and is a positive for job creation. But the government’s economic policy has to deliver. And that the wait will be longish for the post-graduate delivery staff hoping to operate an office desk instead of a noisy two-wheeler.
Expert recommendations on what will revive the white collar job market closely mirror wish lists on economic policy — boost consumption, ease liquidity, further liberalise rules that govern entrepreneurship, incentivise manufacturing… No one expects a quick turnaround. Meanwhile, job market numbers look more and more grim. A Manpower Employment Outlook survey shows only 13% of companies in the country plan to hire more people in the July-September quarter, down from 16% in the same quarter last year. The survey, which tracked 4,951 firms across industries, shows 61% employers anticipate no change in their payrolls.
“I don’t expect to see a miracle in the next few months… Critical changes, if done with a sense of urgency, will have a cascading effect and unleash the entrepreneurial spirit that will eventually create all kinds of jobs,” says TN Hari, head of human resources at BigBasket. “Government initiatives to increase consumption would be key,” says Ajit Isaac, chairman of business services provider Quess Corp. Isaac believes the white collar job market “will take some time to recover”.
“The government needs to give thrust to certain sectors that have the potential to create more jobs, such as construction, tourism, export of garments, and such others,” says Harsh Mariwala, chairman of Marico.
Niranjan Hiranandani, MD of the Hiranandani Group, wants urgent action on liquidity. “The lack of liquidity in the market is the biggest problem… when you talk about employment…if you can’t improve the liquidity situation, growth is just a number,” he says.
SUITS-BOOTS ARE OK CEO/CXO hiring usually remains relatively insulated from economic troughs, unless they are severe. HR experts see good hiring prospects for new-age businesses such as ed-tech, fin-tech, med-tech, as well as roles on the digital side of other businesses.
Headhunters say CXOs from established sectors such as FMCG and services are moving to new-age businesses, prompting companies in the former category to look out for talent.
“Adding of more geographies to portfolios will mean more CEO/CXO hiring,” says Shailja Dutt, chairperson of executive search firm Stellar Search. Also, in some traditional companies, a big chunk of the top management is ageing and they have not done enough talent-building. Those firms too are doing external hiring.
ENGINEERS, REENGINEER One of the biggest challenges in the job market is the demand-supply mismatch in usable, practical skills. “More usable skills on the supply side will improve the employment situation,” says Santrupt Misra of the Aditya Birla Group.
According to the latest National Employability Report, released by Aspiring Minds, over 80% Indian engineers are unemployable for any job. Only 3.84% of engineers have technical, cognitive and language skills required for software-related jobs in startups, and only 3% have new-age technological skills in areas such as AI, machine learning, data science and mobile development. The shocking figure: engineers’ employability for new-age jobs is on average just1.7%. “There is a huge gap between skill sets needed and skill sets available even in traditional areas like construction,” says Hiranandani, adding that “we need to have a war-like approach toward skill development”.
HEALTHCARE & HOSPITALITY BETTER OFF Search and hiring experts identify a few sectors with reasonably good job prospects in the next 12-18 months: KPOs, infrastructure, tourism, startups, hospitality, healthcare and lifesciences, renewable energy, project engineering, and most functions digital.
These sectors contrast sharply with banking and financial services (BFSI), non-banking finance companies (NBFCs), telecom, auto and retail.
KPOs are expected to hire about 150,000 over the next two years, according to estimates by TeamLease, as these companies sharpen their India focus.
Nasscom estimates the market size of global inhouse centres (GICs) increased to $28.3 billion in the past financial year from $19.4 billion in 2014-15. The workforce of ‘installed’ GIC talent reached about a million in 2018-19 from about 745,000 over the same period.
“While protectionism is increasing, certain sectors cannot do without migration to India,” says BN Thammaiah, managing director, Kelly Services, referring to the increasing focus of shared services units of global companies in India.
The IT industry is estimated to add more than 170,000 new jobs this year, almost the same as a year ago, according to estimates by Nasscom, even as the conversation about automation continues.
A few are optimistic even about financial services. Motilal Oswal, chairman of Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd, feels that one big positive for the job market is that internationally there is a huge interest in India.
“We are planning more hiring than what we budgeted last year,” Oswal says. “The government is making right kind of noises for employment and I see a pick-up in jobs. NBFCs are a concern, but banks, insurance and asset management companies (AMCs) are doing well.”
Ecommerce companies are likely to add jobs as mature players such as Oyo, Swiggy and Zomato expand to newer territories. Cash-rich ‘soonicorns’ (soon-to-be-unicorns) may also hire more to drive growth.
