100,000 jobs added by 550 firms in 2005-06

India Inc is courting talent as if there is no tomorrow, as its growth story continues.

Employment data available for 550 manufacturing and services companies in the private sector show that they increased their headcount by 100,000 in 2005-06, which is around 70 per cent more than the number of people recruited in the previous year.

In 2004-05, 60,000 additional jobs were created, up from 5,000 in 2003-04, although not by the same 550 companies in this year's list.

Software companies remained the largest recruiter (over 64,000 new jobs), closely followed by private sector banks, garment exporters and broking services. Interestingly, public sector companies cumulatively reduced their staff strength by over 17,000.

The top four software companies "" TCS, Wipro, Infosys Technologies and Satyam Computer "" have already added 47,486 employees in the first half of the current financial year.

Private sector banks added 22,991 employees in 2005-06. After years of remaining in the background, the textile sector came back with a bang. Gokaldas Exports, for example, was the third largest recruiter during the year. Garment and yarn exporting companies added a total of 12,793 employees.

The other sector coming back into the recruitment market is pharmaceuticals. Indian drug companies together added 7,174 employees last year.

Sectors such as automobile ancillaries, hospitals, media, chemicals, capital goods, non-banking finance companies, airlines and the engineering sector also joined the party by recruiting big.

The only segment that has not participated in the growth story has been public sector banks and engineering PSUs. The staff strength of 54 public sector undertakings declined by 17,734, of which the State Bank of India and other public sector banks accounted for over 12,000.

By all available indications, the jobs boom is going to continue. According to Manpower Inc, India has been leading other countries with a positive overall net employment outlook of 27 per cent.

McKinsey estimates India's factories will need 73 million workers by 2015, which is 50 per cent more than today's.

India's airlines will add 440 new planes by 2010 to their fleets, which means 3,200 additional jobs for pilots alone, and many times that number for cabin crew, ground staff and airport handling. About 40,000 vacancies are expected in the next three to four years just for cabin crew jobs.

Other sectors like FMCG and real estate are not far behind.

Services like retail and telecom are expected to create 2 million jobs in India in the next two years.

Topping the recruiters' list will, of course, be the information technology and information technology-enabled services industry, which will continue to recruit an average of 400 people every day.

The National Association of Software and Service Companies estimates fresh infotech labour supply at 250,000 in 2006-07.

India is poised to be a $60 billion software market in 2010, providing direct employment to more than 2.2 million people (and nearly thrice that number by way of indirect employment), Nasscom says.