It바카라s an inconceivable thought바카라99 per cent job placement in a B-School in a pandemic-ravaged 2021. But it happened for real. Of these, 40 per cent were bagged by women, and almost a quarter of them were hired for leadership roles. The online hiring at the Indian School of Business (ISB) took place in February this year, or just before the second wave of Covid. But, Uday Virmani, senior director, career advancement service, ISB, says 바카라the big names, including McKinsey, Bain, Deloitte and Accenture, came with lucrative offers바카라.
A third of the jobs that the ISB students accepted were in consulting, which is a coveted field for any management graduate. More importantly, each company that participated in the placements took on an average of six students, and each candidate got an average of 1.8 offers, i.e. most had more than one in their pockets and chose between them. The average annual cost-to-company emoluments rose to more than Rs 2.8 million in 2021, almost 10 per cent higher than the previous year.
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What happened with ISB is exceptional, but not unique. As new data comes in, it is evident that Indian employers are excited and enthusiastic about the immediate future of jobs. If a third Covid wave spares us, or if it comes in a less deadly form, the employment mart may boom for aspirants at every level바카라from entry stages to highest ones. India Inc. may bounce back, and the situation may soon be back to the pre-pandemic period. However, the contours of jobs will never be the same.
Mercer|Mettl, the global leader in talent assessment, stated in its State of Talent Acquisition Report, 2021, that after the mayhem in 2020, which led to huge unemployment, data on the hiring front for this year 바카라looks promising바카라. It added that HR managers across companies and several sectors are optimistic in their outlook. Mercer바카라s latest survey concluded that 60 per cent of the companies wanted to hire people for new positions. This is as good as it gets, although the viral crisis continues.
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Yet another recent report, OLX People Employer Sentiment Report, 2021, gave a rosy picture. According to it, 70 per cent of the surveyed employers confirmed that they had resumed hiring. While only a small percentage of them바카라16 per cent바카라filled up 100 per cent of its workers바카라 capacity, a sizeable 54 per cent of the firms hired up to 50 per cent of their requirement. Most of the HR managers did not have trouble scouting for the right talent, possibly because there is more of it available in the market today.
바카라With employers optimistic about the recovery of the Indian economy, buoyed by the mass-scale vaccination and a large number of businesses getting back on their feet, the positive hiring sentiment for blue-collar workers indicates a steady and longer-term shift,바카라 says a confident Tarun Sinha, CEO, OLX People. In a sudden flourish, social media sites like LinkedIn are flooded with job ads. 바카라For months, I found nothing. Now, there are a few new ones posted every day,바카라 says one of the aspirant-applicants.
Anecdotal evidence shows that a large portion of those who lose their jobs or witness salary slashes start their own ventures or become consultants to survive. 바카라Gone are the days when doctors and engineers were in demand. Today, the skilled youth has ample opportunities to join the gig ecosystem in areas such as social media, sales, content creation, customer-support, coding, reselling and others,바카라 explains Prerna Kalra, co-founder and CEO, Daalchini Technologies.
But the fact remains that there is segregation or differences across sectors. 바카라In industries that are doing well now, there are huge employment demands,바카라 contends R.P. Yadav, CMD, Genius Consultants. The ones that are struggling in the aftermath of the coronavirus outbreaks and series of lockdowns are still cagey about recruiting more people. In effect, it implies that some areas will boom in the near future, and the laggards will take some time, maybe a year or two, to reboot and revive.
Among the happening sectors, the obvious ones, according to Yadav, are healthcare, pharmaceuticals, e-commerce, retail, telecom, logistics and IT. Technology and IT continue to employ the maximum number of people. For instance, the latest report by naukri.com, Naukri JobSpeak Trends, reveals that employment in the IT-software sector surged by a 14 per cent sequential growth in May 2021, followed by a further 5 per cent in the next month. This is true of tech-related jobs in other areas too.
바카라IT remains the key performer in terms of hiring activity, achieving an all-time high growth of 52 per cent now, compared to pre-Covid levels in June 2019,바카라 says Pawan Goyal, chief business officer, naukri.com, a major placement firm. Since technology is fast becoming a key driver to spur growth in various industries, there is a growing demand for skills in artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, data analytics and machine-learning (ML) in manufacturing and allied services.
바카라The adoption of robotics in manufacturing and warehousing will improve the nature of available jobs. Robots will eliminate the strenuous work of moving and lifting heavy materials, even as the more interesting activities that require hand-eye coordination and subjectivity remain with humans. The workforce will remain healthy, both physically and mentally. Also, the maintenance of robots will create highly-skilled jobs,바카라 says Satish Shukla, co-founder and head (HR and marketing), Addverb Technologies.
Similarly, more and different kinds of employment will emerge in the healthcare sector, once the hospitals바카라 business becomes more stable. At present, explains Navnit Singh, CMD (India), Korn Ferry, a global consulting firm, 바카라elective surgeries바카라 take a backseat, as the medical infrastructure and fraternity tackles the Covid crisis. Over the next few years, he adds, there will be opportunities for trained individuals in hospitals as well as allied areas like medical devices.
E-commerce, which has been on fire for the past year, will continue to be a preferred choice for employees. This year, the segment created eight or nine new Indian Unicorns, a word popularised by venture capitalist Aileen Lee to describe a privately-held start-up with a value of more than a billion dollars. In the recent past, e-commerce and digital payment players such as Zomato, Swiggy and PayTM have either come out with their IPOs, or announced their intentions to do so, and at huge valuations.
Job-seekers need to be aware that the optimistic rumblings in these areas may not continue. The growth peaks and spurts can be short-lived, as the economy slowly, but surely, trudges back to its old ways. Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, one of the richest investors, questioned Zomato바카라s valuation. In an interview, he said, 바카라I think people have been far too optimistic about how fast these companies can produce cash flows.바카라 There may be a bit of irrational exuberance around them.
Jhunjhunwala added that he won바카라t buy Zomato shares at the prevailing price. 바카라I don바카라t have to go to every party in town because the hangover comes the next day,바카라 he quipped. There is a likelihood that sectors like e-commerce and IT may enter a growth-plateau stage, with flattened profitability, over the next two-three years. Thus, it may be better for people to think more in terms of prospects emerging over the next two-five years. Think about the jobs of the future, not just the present.
In this context, tourism, hospitality, transportation (airline and railways) and entertainment are areas to watch out for. At present, they are in doldrums, and may take one-two years to even find their feet. But, when they recover, they will fly away on new growth paths. That can happen with infrastructure, too, as the real benefits of government stimulus packages begin to show results on the ground. Hence, it may be worthwhile to go beyond IT and technology, and keep an eye on these sectors.
Apart from sector-related trends, the actors in the labour market need to understand the intricacies of two other developments. The first is that more jobs are being created in Tier-2 cities (average growth: 23 per cent), compared to the metros (15 per cent). In the short run, the base effect will work in favour of the latter, but this will overturn by 2025. So, if you are ambitious, prepared to take calculated risks and wish to take giant leaps in the future, be prepared to venture into smaller cities.
Second, as in the case of ISB, a large proportion of the new hires are women. The 2021 Wheebox바카라s India Skills Report, in partnership with CII, AICTE, UNDP, LinkedIn, state governments, and others, found that women comprised 36 per cent of this year바카라s employment by India Inc. This is an improvement of over 30 per cent from 2015. One isn바카라t sure if this is related to Covid, but it is good news for those concerned with vanishing women labour and their declining participation in the job market. Over the years, the number of qualified women exceeded men바카라46.8 per cent and 45.91 per cent, respectively, in 2021, as per the Wheebox report. Corporate recruiters felt that a higher percentage of women are more employable, compared to men. However, the Wheebox survey, which assessed 65,000 candidates, who appeared for WNET, and spoke to 150-plus companies across 15 sectors, found that less than half of Indian youth are now considered a 바카라highly employable바카라 resource.
What is more deplorable is that this year바카라s percentage of employable young workers declined from the previous years. This state of affairs is damning in the Covid era, and can become worse in the post-pandemic period. The reason: in the 바카라new normal바카라 period, employees will need several additional skills to cope up with the new workplaces and work culture. If things don바카라t change, it is likely the corporate sector will ignore a higher percentage of youngsters.
Korn Ferry바카라s Singh predicts a 바카라serious talent crunch at the bottom of the pyramid바카라 in the next two-three years. He feels that India Inc. will not have 바카라enough trained, skilled, educated and employable people바카라. Such thinking seems counterintuitive in this time when almost anyone, and everyone, is either looking for a job, or changing the current one, or new ways to increase monthly income. But the new post-Covid truth may turn out to be different for both employers and employees.
Another counterintuitive trend is that as the work-from-home culture and outsourcing gathers pace, highly-skilled people will become comfortable with being on their own and working for multiple employers. A similar mindset will grip management, which will become secure with part-time workers. Although this is unfathomable today, tomorrow may witness deliberate and decisive choice by employees to opt for the freelance route. Companies, contends Singh, will grapple with both high attrition and talent shortage of right-skilled individuals. Hence, curricula will need to change to prepare people for the new realities, and India Inc. will have to constantly re-skill and retrain their existing workers to perform multiple and varied roles, some of which include those that do not exist. For instance, there is a greater appreciation for those who possess technology knowledge and understand people management. 바카라In the past, wireless was the in-thing. There was demand for communication engineers, but now the same holds true for AI and ML,바카라 says Sanjit Krishnan Kaul, associate professor (ECE), IIIT-Delhi.
Even students understand these gaps. 바카라The issue is that students desperately want add-on courses in AI and ML. We have adapted and made the curriculum flexible to help them learn about such applications. Unlike two years ago, we offer additional courses to every student, including those who opt for B-Tech and M-Tech,바카라 admits Kaul. AI has applications in areas such as environment, wildlife and smart city planning. Google and Microsoft seek skills to analyse and understand the vast amounts of data they collect. Indian industry, too, is gearing itself to bridge the knowledge and learning crevices and cracks. Ruchee Anand, director (talent and learning solutions), Linkedin, India, pointed out in the Future of Talent (2021) report that to keep pace with rapidly digitising business needs, companies are focusing on upgrading the capabilities of their workforces. Thus, 95 per cent of Indian companies have dedicated learning and development (L&D) programmes to help employees learn new skills and prepare for the future.
The report adds, 바카라India will see more companies merge roles, up-skill their employees and hire internally to maximise business growth without expanding operational costs. Data-led hiring practices will also play a critical role in helping companies engage with their employees, attract the right talent and hire more effectively in 2021.바카라 Sulbha Rai, chief people officer, RenewBuy, explains that 바카라technology will play an instrumental role in hiring across sectors바카라, and her company hopes to use newer digital channels to reach out to the 바카라right talent바카라.
Given these perceived corporate needs, new hires and existing workers need to be, in the words of Sushant Dwivedy, MD (India and the Philippines), SHL, 바카라agile and reliable바카라, as well as 바카라self-learners바카라 with 바카라strong work ethics and the ability to adapt바카라. Soft skills, which are indicative of success in remote-working, are an important part of the recruitment criteria,바카라 adds Dwivedy, whose insights are based on survey responses from a large number of companies. This will ensure competition between both employers and employees, the former to find the right people and the latter to land preferred jobs. Such a tussle for jobs will accelerate as there is a drastic management shift towards equal employment opportunities. 바카라Practices such as diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) are altering hiring processes. Such outlook is likely to nurture a feeling of belongingness and create a robust talent pipeline, which is critical for organisational growth,바카라 explained Siddhartha Gupta, CEO, Mercer|Mettl, at a press conference.
Such trends바카라perception among firms about the shortage of talent, feeling among aspirants and existing workers that they don바카라t have the additional and multiple skills, and equal opportunities바카라will negatively impact future employment. However, as the economy revs up바카라some sectors expand now and the others later바카라the positive effect can translate into new jobs for those who are in the market. Yet, the two-way opposing movements may divide and fracture society between the hired and jobless.
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First Off The Mark
Hasmukh Rawal, co-founder and MD of the Pune-based Mylab, recalls a team meeting in early 2020, when Covid-19 was turning into a pandemic. The company wanted to be the first to come out with a local PCR test and have a few thousand kits in the inventory. 바카라This was the plan...let바카라s make 8,000-10,000 of them. We never thought India would need millions a day.바카라 From there on, the crisis was a jumpstart: Mylab came out with a string of firsts, topping it with a self-test kit in June this year. The CoviSelf test is one of the rare occasions that an Indian firm beat the MNCs, claims Rawal. Three million units were shipped at the launch, and the aim is to reach 95 per cent of the pincodes across the country.
But how did Mylab do it? 바카라It바카라s like the Olympics, where we see only five minutes of performance. But before that our team (the players) worked for many years on several products. I think we had the right team and right pieces of the puzzle when the pandemic hit,바카라 explains Rawal. Mylab began as an R&D outfit in 2012, and acquired a corporate image in 2016 to monetise itself. In 2018-19, it launched the Individual Donor-Nucleic Acid Test for screening donor blood samples prior to transfusions to reduce the risk of infections such as HIV. 바카라These tests are mandatory, but we cannot afford it. So, we felt that an economical solution could save many lives,바카라 says Rawal. 바카라We are a social-impact-based company and we focus on high-end diagnostic tests at affordable costs.바카라
Last year, Mylab increased its R&D strength to work on multiple product lines in the areas of cancer and infectious diseases. 바카라It바카라s a continuous innovation process. Whether the products are accepted or not is not the issue. But not doing it will be criminal for us. A solution that works in a country like ours can work everywhere, not the other way around,바카라 he adds.
(This appeared in the print edition as "We Are Hiring")
바카라Ajay Sukumaran in Bangalore
