One of the most clichéd phrases of the last few weeks is that “current times are unprecedented in terms of uncertainty and economic turbulence.” If one were to add to the economic challenge the other challenges facing India at this time, the picture becomes hazier. These include a government that has never really governed the nation in its almost five years of existence and is now entering into the next general election phase, one that will further stymie any determined action by the various policymaking arms of the state and central governments to provide some positive thrust to the economy. Besides, there is an environment of increasing internal insecurity and deepening social schisms.
Under such circumstances, notwithstanding the public furore on layoffs and the subsequent exchange of promises from corporate India to refrain from enforcing any mass attrition of workforce, it is inevitable that most businesses, big and small, will be looking at enforcing cuts in their overall wage bill.
Terrible though it may sound to those who have already been or are likely to be directly affected, this is one bitter medicine that Indian businesses have to administer and one that should have been seen coming by a majority of the workforce, especially those in white-collar jobs. In the last five years, the Indian job market was on a steroid-induced growth path. Just-graduated MBAs with little or no experience were offered annual salaries in excess of Rs 15 lakh. Mid-level managers were given the fast track to the CEO position with compensations in crores of rupees, in addition to other financial inducements. Fresh, non-professionally-qualified graduates were hired by airlines, banks and IT/ITES businesses at starting salaries exceeding those of their parents, who may have slogged for more than 25 years to earn the same kind of money. Alas, a country with almost 600 million in the working population age group and with perhaps 75,000 (or more) professionally active MBAs from the IIMs alone, behaved as if it was a small EU nation facing a workforce crunch. As a result, wages and other compensation levels almost touched European levels.
Hence, it is sad to see that the business leadership that met the Prime Minister earlier this week did not have the confidence to state that in the larger interest of increasing corporate India’s productivity, the excesses relating to reckless hiring and unbridled costs have to be purged, even as in totality, India will continue to create new jobs as long as the government moves away from populist positions and supports, through policy and governance, more job creation activity. I hope that the government and corporate India do not enter into a mutually self-serving relationship of “giving sops for preserving jobs,” since that will only make India weaker. Instead, the shareholders/other stakeholders in any public or privately held business have a right to demand performance, from each CEO, manager and their support teams, which is in appropriate parity with their costs. The global and national economic slowdown should not be accepted as an excuse for poor performance, since it is only in these tough times that the true calibre of managers and their support teams can be tested and evaluated.
Of course, losing a job is traumatic, something I can vouch for, having personally experienced it once in 1990. With that experience, and having seen more than one “bust and boom” cycle since, my advice to those who are in good jobs (and a majority can objectively say they are) is that they must first acknowledge their good luck, and then they should start putting whatever extra effort they can to help their employers remain healthy and thereby be able to retain, if not create, more of those jobs. Parameters such as job satisfaction, the notion of work-life balance, personal considerations such as children’s schooling, and financial considerations such as the current compensation etc are probably relevant, and maybe even important, but only in more optimistic times. In the present, survival should be the leitmotif.
To those who have unfortunately lost their jobs already, my advice is to first try to find another job — it could be just any other job. These are not the times to be too choosy, and sitting at home waiting for a better or even an equivalent job is fraught with the risk of increasing frustration and depleting savings. Those who are not able to find another job should seriously consider self-employment. Even in today’s troubled times, most urban centres offer some opportunities for a wide plethora of new products and services. Again, if one can, one should start with just about anything without too deep an evaluation of the future potential. The objective, again, is first to survive and do something positive in terms of gainful activity. Once the economy gets on again in a rapid growth trajectory, one can again either try to get back into a job or think of some new business that may be more in line with one’s dreams and liking.
