The 2012 edition of the TeamLease Jobs and Salaries Primer – an annual report we bring out – sprung a surprise. The analysis showed up a sharp rise in salaries of a bunch of blue collar job profiles. Further exploration proved that the phenomenon was not restricted just a handful of job profiles.

Many Blue Collar profiles commanded salaries that were appreciably higher than those for White Collar profiles, if not similar. The differential was observed for many job profiles and ranged in magnitude from nil to significant.

In this research report, we explore salary data related to vocationally skilled blue collar job profiles and those related to professionally qualified MBAs and Engineers. The comparison is aimed at identifying specific sectors and job profiles where salaries have either achieved equity or where salaries for vocationally skilled profiles have even overtaken either those for Engineers and / or those for MBAs.

The Inflection Point

The report objectives are to understand –

• How salaries compare between vocationally skilled profiles, Engineers and MBAs
• Carry out the comparion by sector and record observations of where the salary inflections lie
• Draw broad and sector specific conclusions about salary trends

Misplaced societal moralities and a dominant patriarchal influence continue to force urban women to make stereotypical choices on their education as well as career.

According to a gender report by TeamLease, the percentage of women being enrolled in higher education is greater than men at graduation level (arts/science/commerce and BEd), but it is significantly lower in streams like BTech, BE and PhD.

With lesser proportion of women enrolling into technical, vocational and managerial education compared with men, the likelihood of them pursuing a worthwhile career in these fields gets diminished. On the other hand, the report states, rural women are entering the labour force in far larger numbers than urban women do. There is thus a sharper drop in labour force participation rate (LFPR) for urban women. The LFPR of women in India is 25.5%, of which rural women constitute 30.02% and urban women, 15.44%.

Rituparna Chakraborty, Senior VP, TeamLease, said: "While we are transforming, our society continues to be highly patronizing around the choices women make in their careers. Right from their young age they are conditioned to believe that only specific jobs are suitable for them, to believe that they need not work after marriage or after having children, notwithstanding the overall unfavourable ecosystem which strengthens the stereotypes." The demand for equal opportunity stems from this reality. "While in absolute terms there are more women in urban areas getting jobs, it's still poor relative to the number of women who are seeking jobs vis-a-vis finding an employment," said Chakraborty.

Summary of the Report:

• Adoption of GST will lead to an 11 per cent growth in hiring across sectors. Further, from a region perspective though marginally South India will top the job generation chart.
• Automobiles, logistics, home decor, e-commerce, media and entertainment, and cement sectors are projected to create 11-18 per cent additional jobs annually after implementation of GST.
• In the case of IT/ITeS and BFSI segments, the growth rate has been pegged between 10 and 12.5 per cent.
• Around 10 to 13 per cent additional jobs are expected to be created every year by consumer durables, pharmaceuticals and telecommunications sectors.
• The predictability of cost of products manufactured or services rendered across the country would improve enterprise productivity.

According to Rituparna Chakraborty, EVP & Co-Founder, TeamLease, "The uniformity and the reduction in the average tax burden offered by GST will provide a great impetus to employment creation."

TeamLease has persistently focused on catalyzing the hands-on (skilled) jobs market. Our Thought Leadership initiative has consistently aimed at structuring this rather unorganized domain and shaping the policy and perception issues associated with the hands-on jobs industry over the past several decades.

This Thought leadership series will delve into comprehending the ‘Signaling Value’ of skills education, mapping candidate aspirations and occupational options and modeling their decisions related to choice of jobs, career advancements and migrations. The current edition deals with the perceptions candidates and their influence networks hold about skills education and hands-on jobs.

According to the report, only 2% of the workforce has opted for formal skill training making it one of the least preferred streams of education. The report attributes the low penetration of vocational learning to the lack of appreciation for hands-on training, limited upward mobility, weak labour market linkages and strong perception of labour as inferior which commands mere subsistent wages.

Further as per the report, apart from social standing, the current vocational education system has not been able to impress the employers either. Employers viewed vocational educated candidates to be marginally better than the untrained. In fact, most corporates were skeptical about the quality of training and hence provided the recruits with in-house training. They were also wary of trained candidates attiring within a short period.

Revised rates of fees for registration certificate under Kerela Shops & Commercial Establishmnet Act, 1960

Revised rates of Minimum Wages for all Industries/ categories in Meghalaya

Revised rates of Minimum Wages for all Industries/ categories in Dadra Nagar Haweli

Revised rates of Minimum Wages for all Industries/ categories in Chhattisgarh

Revised rates of Minimum Wages for all Industries/ categories in Himachal Pradesh

Daman & Diu rates of Wages Revised under Minimum Wages, Act 1948.

ESI implementation for new areas in Tamil Nadu.

Kerala Consumer Price Index numbers revised under Minimum Wages, Act 1948.

The Salary Primer is an annual compilation of temp and perm market salaries across the most relevant geographies and industries, accompanied by trends and insights which add value to hiring and talent management decisions our stakeholders make.The Primer serves as a guide for both job seekers and employers to obtain relevant information and useful insights on talent, skills, salaries, increments and talent longevity.

This edition of the TeamLease Employment Outlook Surveys are designed to deliver a deep and wide, analytical, insight about business and employment sentiment trends across sectors and cities in India.

The surveys are structured broadly to capture the factors that influence sentiment, job growth, employer needs and candidate aspirations, skill and salary trends and state them at an overall and at city- and sector-levels.

Project Objectives:

1. Map Employment and Business Outlook, Job Growth and related trends across the country, cities and sectors.
2. Identify and profile the factors that influence sentiment and job growth.
3. Explore skills employers need, candidate aspirations and map salary trends across cities and sectors.

The Salary Primer is an annual compilation of temp and perm market salaries across the most relevant geographies and industries, accompanied by trends and insights which add value to hiring and talent management decisions our stakeholders make.

The Primer serves as a guide for both job seekers and employers to obtain relevant information and useful insights on talent, skills, salaries, increments and talent longevity.

Employment Outlook Survey - This half yearly edition brings you the yet another set of Survey findings:-

Net Employment Outlook reduces by 3 points in the upcoming half year (Oct-Mar 2014). Despite this bearish outlook, the recent fiscal policy revisions by the central government along with the upcoming 2014 elections have contributed towards the steadfast business sentiment and the Net Business Outlook sees a boost of 3 points in the forthcoming half year.

Infrastructure (+8 points), Retail (+6 points) and Healthcare/Pharma (+4 points) drive the business outlook this coming half-year. However, Manufacturing/Engineering has pressed the panic button with a substantial drop of 4 and 5 points in the Employment and Business sentiments. Meanwhile, IT suffers as there is a 6 point significant dip in the Employment Outlook and a 2 point marginal reduction in the Business Outlook

Sliced by cities, Ahmedabad (+6 and +7 points) and Bangalore (+5 and +4 points) lead a charge of positive growth in both Employment and Business Outlook indices. This degree of optimism amongst corporates is due to dynamic state governments of Gujarat and Karnataka in hyper-drive during the recent elections that took place in mid-2013. Pune loses badly as the Employment and Business sentiments go down by 4 and 5 points respectively. Other laggards include Chennai (3 and 4 point drop) and Kolkata (3 and 2 point drop) in Employment and Business Outlook indices.

The Hiring Intent measures do not vary appreciably by location, but see some pattern variation in terms of hierarchies and functional areas. The coming half year also sees Middle level positions (+4 points), stealing the limelight- a trend witnessed in the previous half year. Engineering (+5 points), continues its dream run and is the top most sought after function in terms of Hiring Intent. Sales/Marketing/Customer Service (+2) and Administration/HR/Office Service (+1) follow suit, however, with an incremental growth. IT witnesses a drop of 3 points and is at the bottom of the list.

Literature review on the IT sector points to a highly optimistic business sentiment as the sector exports are projected to grow at a significant rate during the current fiscal and new technologies such as Social Media, Mobility, Analytics & Cloud Computing acting as drivers of revenue growth. However, with factors such as backlog in the previous fiscal, high bench strength, rising expectation on the quality of talent and automation of jobs, hiring intent is projected to be low. Most importantly, the sector is seeing a major shift as ‘Non-Linear Growth’ models are being increasingly adopted across several organizations.

The Apr’14–Sep’14 HY sees a sentiment boost with upbeat organizations expecting business (outlook sentiment grew 4%) and employment (outlook sentiment grew 5%) to grow at a brisk pace. Reason for this optimistic outlook includes the results of the impending elections and fresh sector specific policies a new regime is expected to usher in.

Top gaining cities in employment outlook trends include Mumbai (up 4%), Bangalore (5%) and Ahmedabad (4%) while Delhi (4%) is projected to have an upswing in its business outlook trend. Losers include Kolkata and Chennai (both down 1% on employment outlook), Hyderabad (down 2% on employment outlook) and Pune/Chennai (down 2% on Business Outlook).

Healthcare & Pharmaceuticals (up 5% and 4% on Employment and Business Outlook, respectively) and Financial Services (up 4% and 5%) lead growth across both the trends. Infrastructure would witness a significant rise (4%) in its business outlook. ITeS stands to lose quite significantly (4%) on business outlook.

Hiring across entry and junior levels of hierarchy is going to pick up (moderately: 2% and 3% respectively). A lot of the functional areas report growth in their respective intent; with hot favourites being Sales/Marketing/Customer Service (up 5%) and Engineering (up 4%). Across most geographic levels, the growth in hiring intent is incremental.

Top three sectors (by city) in terms of employment outlook growth are -

Mumbai: Telecom (3%) / Healthcare &Pharma (2%) / Financial Services, IT (1% each)

Delhi: Infrastructure,Manufacturing & Engineering,Healthcare &Pharma (2% each)

Bangalore: IT (3%) / Financial Services, Infrastructure, Healthcare &Pharma, Telecom (2% each)

Chennai: IT, Retail & FMCG, Manufacturing & Engineering (2% each)

Kolkata: Manufacturing & Engineering (2%) / Retail & FMCG, IT (1% each)

Pune : Infrastructure (2%) / Healthcare &Pharma, Financial Services(1% each)

Hyderabad: ITeS, Retail & FMCG, Healthcare &Pharma(1% each)

Ahmedabad: IT (3%) / Retail & FMCG, Infrastructure (2% each)

Depth Surveys point to a few, rather peripheral, reasons for attrition emerging on the mainstream scene. More organizations are opening up to attributing terminated wrong-fit engagements to attrition. On a positive note, business growth – some of which is attributable to an anticipated GDP growth – is expected to significantly drive hiring activity.

Business outlook in the infrastructure sector is projected to increase by a substantial rate in the coming six months. This is in line with our literature research that also points towards a good business growth in this year. It also reveals that hiring is expected to increase during this year.

The Salary Primer is an annual compilation of temp and perm market salaries across the most relevant geographies and industries, accompanied by trends and insights which add value to hiring and talent management decisions our stakeholders make. Data points covering these attributes for staff working across 318 different Job Profiles, 15 Industries and 8 Functional Domains in 9 major locations are acquired and analyzed.

The Primer serves as a guide for both job seekers and employers to obtain relevant information and useful insights on talent, skills, salaries, increments and talent longevity.

Employment Outlook Survey - This half yearly edition brings you the yet another set of Survey findings:-

Net Employment Outlook reduces by 3 points in the upcoming half year (Oct-Mar 2014). Despite this bearish outlook, the recent fiscal policy revisions by the central government along with the upcoming 2014 elections have contributed towards the steadfast business sentiment and the Net Business Outlook sees a boost of 3 points in the forthcoming half year.

Infrastructure (+8 points), Retail (+6 points) and Healthcare/Pharma (+4 points) drive the business outlook this coming half-year. However, Manufacturing/Engineering has pressed the panic button with a substantial drop of 4 and 5 points in the Employment and Business sentiments. Meanwhile, IT suffers as there is a 6 point significant dip in the Employment Outlook and a 2 point marginal reduction in the Business Outlook

Sliced by cities, Ahmedabad (+6 and +7 points) and Bangalore (+5 and +4 points) lead a charge of positive growth in both Employment and Business Outlook indices. This degree of optimism amongst corporates is due to dynamic state governments of Gujarat and Karnataka in hyper-drive during the recent elections that took place in mid-2013. Pune loses badly as the Employment and Business sentiments go down by 4 and 5 points respectively. Other laggards include Chennai (3 and 4 point drop) and Kolkata (3 and 2 point drop) in Employment and Business Outlook indices.

The Hiring Intent measures do not vary appreciably by location, but see some pattern variation in terms of hierarchies and functional areas. The coming half year also sees Middle level positions (+4 points), stealing the limelight- a trend witnessed in the previous half year. Engineering (+5 points), continues its dream run and is the top most sought after function in terms of Hiring Intent. Sales/Marketing/Customer Service (+2) and Administration/HR/Office Service (+1) follow suit, however, with an incremental growth. IT witnesses a drop of 3 points and is at the bottom of the list.

Literature review on the IT sector points to a highly optimistic business sentiment as the sector exports are projected to grow at a significant rate during the current fiscal and new technologies such as Social Media, Mobility, Analytics & Cloud Computing acting as drivers of revenue growth. However, with factors such as backlog in the previous fiscal, high bench strength, rising expectation on the quality of talent and automation of jobs, hiring intent is projected to be low. Most importantly, the sector is seeing a major shift as ‘Non-Linear Growth’ models are being increasingly adopted across several organizations.

India’s current higher education system is a bottleneck, as 1 million people join the labour force every month for the next twenty years without adequate training. 80% of India’s higher education system of 2030 is yet to be built and needs breaking the difficult trinity of cost, quality and scale. It needs massive innovation, investment, deregulation and competition.

TeamLease has hired somebody every 5 minutes for the last 5 years but hired only 5% of the kids who came to us for a job.

This report is part of our annual series to raise awareness on the unintended and dangerous consequences of our current labour and human capital regime.