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.