In the light of the slowdown on the employment front, Mohit Gupta, director and co-founder, TeamLease Services Pvt Ltd, the biggest staffing firms in the country, tells Praveen Bose that the slowdown and the economic crisis have seen the growth of the industry being tempered.
Many of the sectors that were expected to create a huge demand for temporary staff, to meet their manpower needs, have slowed down and may be having a sobering effect on the industry which had seen break-neck speed of growth over the last few years.
How has the situation changed for the temping industry today with the slowdown?
The overall slowdown has reduced the exuberance and aggressive hiring that various industry segments had projected. While we used to have over 10,000 open positions at any given point in time, we have now reduced open positions and currently have an average of around 6,000.
However, given the sluggish demand for people, the attrition levels have come down substantially and stand at single digit levels. With falling demand and reduced attrition, the temp industry is at a standstill in terms of the aggressive growth that it saw in the previous years.
Has the industry mix that has taken to temporary staffing changed?
Not really. All industries are still taking on temps but in a controlled and reduced manner. But, a slowdown in the market is always a good platform to utilise temps given the flexibility and the benefits the option provides the corporates today.
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How has the revenue per employee changed and by how much for the industry, and for you?
There is no change in the revenue model. We still work to the model of transparency and a mark up model to working with our clients.
The retail sector, which was expected to be a major employer of temps, is not doing so well. What has been its impact on you?
The retail sector was not a large segment for temping, though it was expected to be one. We have already started working in the retail sector and the ground proof of delivery and benefits would drive up utilisation in the sector.
We do believe that this will be a large sector for temps and will build up over a period of time. Patience is a virtue for the industry and growth.
What about the other sectors, such as infrastructure and construction? How have their experience over the past two or three months impacted you?
These sectors work more in the unorganised sector for utilising manpower and would take time to move them from there to the organised play since it would have a cost implication and also the capability building to ensure payments (mostly by cash) across locations. We have made an initial foray into these sectors and believe they will play out to being larger segments in the future.
How many temps do you have now? Has the number on your rolls fallen?
We now have a little over 80,000 temps. We have seen a huge growth in the past and that has now tempered down with the reduced demand, but has been balanced by the reduced attrition as the number of people leaving to take up permanent jobs is much lesser as the job market has cooled down. For us any attrition is a positive attrition anyway. Most people leaving are leaving to take up permanent jobs.
Does Teamlease have any new initiatives in place for the temps?
With our aim to move from an episodic career mela, to regular means of getting people. We are in the process of setting up career centres. These will help the candidates to get tested in soft skills, computer knowledge assessments and other skills.