Diversity in India Inc: Women got only 21 out of every 100 new jobs in FY22

This is the second of a four-part series examining diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) in corporate India. Part 2 looks at a decline in the representation of women in the workforce

Pooja V (name changed on request) lost her mother last May after an illness that exhausted her savings. She’s responsible for her aged grandmother and is also financing her brother’s education. One job offer that the fraud and risk analyst received — after her previous assignment ended in February — involved a relocation to Trichy which she had to turn down. She is still looking for a job that would allow her to stay in Chennai and take care of her grandmother.
 
Women are getting a smaller share of jobs in some of India’s largest companies, shows an analysis of annual reports by S&P BSE 100 companies over the past five years. Women accounted for only 21 jobs of every 100 new jobs in the fi­n­ancial year 2021-22 (FY22). This is a drop from 42 in FY21, and 35 in FY20. The analysis looked at a sample of 61 firms with uniform data across five years. The latest figure is the lowest since at least FY19.

 
Fewer hiring of women by the biggest job-creating sectors in FY22 contributed to the overall decline in women’s share in new jobs. The top hiring sectors for the year were information technology (IT; software), banking and finance, and automobile. They accounted for over 90 per cent of the new jobs in the sample. The share of women in the incremental hiring by software firms was 20.3 per cent. It was 24.4 per cent for banks and finance companies. Auto firms reduced women in the workforce, even as their employee base expanded by 7.5 per cent.

 
Fewer hiring caused a slight decline in the prevalence of women staffers in software firms, though the IT sector still has the biggest share of women employees among major sectors. The share of women in IT firms dropped from 36.2 per cent in FY19 to 33.8 per cent in FY22. Banks and financial companies were a close second with a 22.8 per cent share for FY22.
 
The figure is around 7.7 per cent for crude oil, natural gas and refinery com­p­­anies. The automobile segment had 2.1 per cent women in the workforce.
 
Some sub-segments have a higher women representation. For example, the readymade garments or apparel segment had women comprising 81.6 per cent of the workforce.

 
Women saw their share in the workforce shrink as fewer women were added to payrolls even as the number of employees in the sample rose. Women accounted for 24.3 per cent of the cumulative workforce. This figure remained unchanged before and after the pandemic.
 
Lohit Bhatia, president, Indian Staffing Federation, an industry body of staffing companies, said India is an anomaly in terms of women’s participation in the workforce. Only 19.2 per cent of the women of age 15 years or older were part of the labour force in India, compared to the global figure of 46 per cent, according to World Bank data. Bhatia said lack of public utilities and safety are some of the major reasons for women preferring customer-facing jobs that are typically done under a single roof. “In e-commerce, within warehousing and quality assurance, companies are hiring more women. But the same is a challenge in the delivery segment because a huge population of women in India doesn’t have a two-wheeler licence; also, our roads are not as safe,” he said.

 
Some sectors have a relatively positive outlook than others. Ameesha Prabhu, chief executive officer, Trust for Retailers and Retail Associates of India (TRRAIN), said more stores are opening since 2021 with every brand increasing its footprint in tier 2 and tier 3 cities, along with metros.
 
“The requirement for a relevant workforce in the retail industry will increase and within that, the participation of young women will increase. We must ensure there is enough supply to meet the growing demand,” she said.
 
“From a sectoral perspective, the EV (electric vehicle) industry has been hiring more women… Start-ups especially have opened doors to women techies who come in with fresh perspectives and a better understanding of customer needs than their male counterparts,” said Yeshab Giri, chief commercial officer, Randstad India, a multinational human resource consulting firm.