India Inc braces itself for a flat hiring period ahead

Most US employers are unwilling to add workers because of uncertainty around Nov elections

Hiring activity for the next three months are expected to be flat, according to human resource consultants. The weak economy coupled with flat performance in the quarter ended June 30, will play spoilsport to the hiring intentions of the companies in India.

According to the Manpower Employment Outlook Survey released today by ManpowerGroup, the hiring pace is likely to slow noticeably in the coming quarter, particularly in the public administration/education and the transportation & utilities sectors. The net employment outlook, according to the study stood at +18 per cent for the fourth quarter of calendar year 2012 (till the end of December 2012), reporting a year-on-year decrease of 16 percentage points.

Net Employment Outlook is derived by taking the percentage of employers anticipating total employment to increase and subtracting from this the percentage expecting to see a decrease in employment at their location in the next quarter.

"The weaker hiring outlook reflects caution amongst employers as Indian companies gauge the impact of the ongoing global slowdown compounded by local governance issues and policy paralysis. Keep in mind that our research indicates Indian employers do not intend to shed staff, but they are definitely planning to considerably downshift their hiring until they see more positive signals in the marketplace," said Sanjay Pandit, Managing Director of ManpowerGroup India.   
 
Other human resource firms report a similar trend. Says E Balaji, MD & CEO, Randstad India, "We are expecting a flat year ahead, in terms of hiring. Though there will be no drastic drop in hiring, single digit decrease in hiring will be particularly noted in stock market oriented firms and retail industry." Balaji added that owing to the holiday season in December, multinational companies would see slow hiring activity in December.

Sunil Goel, Director of recruitment firm GlobalHunt further explained that the effects of the global economic downturn and local economy would be clearly reflected on the hiring numbers, in the coming quarter. He was of the view that technology and the financial services sectors would be the most affected.

Industry players have been particularly concerned about the uncertainty among companies in giving out clear hiring numbers for the coming quarters. Also, placement officials of engineering institutes have been concerned about the fact that companies are not yet sure about their hiring intentions, This may possibly lead to a gloomy placement season this year for these institutes.

Hiring activity has generally been on a downward trend in the past few months. The Naukri Job Speak index, after remaining flat for consecutive five months, saw a 4 per cent dip in Aug-12 when compared to Jul-12. This clearly shows that employers in the country seem to be embracing a cautious approach in their hiring activity as economic uncertainties and inflationary pressure continue to weigh down their sentiment. As per the index, key industry sectors like IT- Software, oil & gas, pharma and auto have seen dipping hiring figures continuously for the last two months.