Attrition and Hiring in India

As the economic recession is melting down, the companies are in the phase of hiring new employees. With the recession there was seen changes in the percentage of attrition. The attrition rate at present in India is about 9-11% which was 18-20% earlier. This has happened because of less available job opportunities as compared to the past. The number of lay offs are also less in India as compared to the rest of world. In India 12.6% companies are considering to lay off their employees whereas in US 55% of companies are doing this. China is at 30.6%, Japan at 17% and Australia at 32.4%.

But with the squeezing of economic recession, new jobs can again give rise to the problem of attrition in India. BPO sector in India has the highest attrition rate. Gone are the days when people used to stick to one job & got retired from the same job after 25-30 years. The trend has changed a lot. Now everyone wants to grow at much faster pace & keep looking for job change & satisfaction. As per the Hay Group's report, the attrition rate in BPO is 23.5% that is followed by Communications (22%) & Retail (18%). The IT industry is seeing 15-16% attrition rate. The major reasons citied are no post job benefits like pension & PF with very less basic salary. Apart from this numerations & bonuses are also very less as compared to other industries that are leading to attrition. Further if the companies will not think from the employee's perspective then the never ending attrition will further increase.

Most of the Call center or BPO sector hire freshers with or without graduation. So when they get experience of one or two years they look for more greener pasture and thus change the job for more salary & position. But if the attrition rate is compared to the last two to three years then for year 2009 there has been a decrease. This is because of the less availability of new job opportunities due to recession. Attrition at senior level is further low than the executive level because of the job satisfaction both on professional & financial front.

Many companies thus to solve this problem are looking for employees who are already employed. Companies are taking lateral entry that means hiring employees from the other company at same level & salary. Although in India there are anti-poaching laws but yet this is being practiced.

The sectors of financial services, insurance, telecom & retail are seeing major recruitments. New companies & extensions along with the less availability of talent in these sectors have led to more job recruitments in these sectors. As per Manpower Consultants, the employment service providers, there is a scope of 25% employment in India for fourth quarter in 2009 which was 19% in the first quarter. Kotak Mahindra Bank is hiring around 750 people by the end of this year. 100 employees will be freshers. Capegemini is also on the way of hiring employees and expected to increase the work force to 40,000 from 17,000 by 2010. Also major hiring will be seen in Deloitte that was once facing the high attrition.

So overall it can be seen that with the expansion of the companies, the hiring is on. Present day employers are looking for the quality rather than quantity. So you as an employee can brush up your talent to grab the matching job opportunity that will be knocking your door soon.

Wipro to hire 5000

Hyderabad: Considering a fresh recruitment strategy of taking in graduates from non-engineering institutes, Wipro plans to hire around 5,000 people in the next couple of months.

"Our strategy is to recruit non-engineering graduates, in addition to engineering and make them fit into the slot. We are still working out the details," said Wipro Technologies Joint CEO Girish Paranjpe. Refusing to divulge more details for next year's recruitments and outlook, Paranjpe said that it would be a mix of 60 percent freshers and 40 percent experienced.

Last year the company made offers to as many as 8,500 persons through recruitment drives in colleges and institutions. "We expect clients to make no further cuts in their budgets. We expect 2010 to be a better year than 2009," Paranjpe said on the sidelines of dedicating renovated Manikonda Lake at Hyderabad facility to the community.

He said that the new hiring strategies will be worked out in a month or two. Attrition rate in the company currently stands at ten percent. On becoming energy efficient, he said that the company is determined to reduce the carbon emission per employee by 45 percent from the present 3.96 tonnes to 2.5 tonnes in the next five years. "Our power consumption went down by 12 percent last year and we are planning to set up a micro windmill at our Hyderabad facility soon," said Paranjpe.

Indian Outsourcing Workers stressed to the limit

The outsourcing industry has brought jobs and prosperity to India - but, asks Saritha Rai, at what cost to workers' well being?

The cheery, chatty voice at the other end of your customer care helpline may be a stressed-out, sleep-deprived and depressed twenty-something in Bangalore.

As many young people in India's outsourcing industry are beginning to discover, underneath the heady promise of an exciting job, a good paycheck and attractive career prospects lie long spells of night shifts, ruthless targets and the dreadful monotony of writing code or pacifying angry customers.

The outsourcing industry has long been hailed as a key driver to India's rise as a global economic power. Now, that growth is beginning to take its toll on its workers who labour for long hours in stressful work environments to meet tight deadlines for customers thousands of miles away.

Workers are suffering from obesity, sleep disorders, depression and broken relationships - problems which can lead to more serious conditions such as diabetes or heart disease. In a country where a public healthcare system is virtually non-existent, overworked outsourcing employees could present a health crisis in the making.

The troubles have worsened since the start of the global economic downturn last year. Employees are now particularly worried about job security. They watch anxiously as colleagues get axed from their jobs and their own salaries get slashed.

Karuna Baskar, director at 1to1help.net, a Bangalore-based counseling firm, says there is a recent rise in the number of workers coming in with mental issues like depression, bi-polar disorder and suicidal tendencies.

Many workers struggle to make the transition from the college campus to the office environment and find they cannot cope with the stress, says Aashu Calapa, executive vice president of human resources for outsourcing firm Firstsource Solutions. The industry loses a slice of its workers solely to work stress, he says.

Ash (not his real name), an employee with a multinational firm's captive outsourced unit in Bangalore, has just been discharged from a week's stay in the hospital. Ironically, he prides himself for being near-religious about eating correctly and getting adequate sleep and exercise.

But in the end, all it took was a schedule that went out-of-whack for a week for him to land up in the hospital with acute gastric problems. The doctors advised him to ease off alcohol and better manage work stress.

Ash, who has worked night shifts during his entire four-year career at the back office firm, believes he got away lightly.

His friends suffer from migraines, backaches, insomnia and anxiety attacks. The causes are a combination of long work hours, disrupted eating and sleeping schedules, a fondness for junk food and deadline pressure, he says.

Many outsourcing workers are in their early 20s, just out of college and in their first jobs, and often feel they are invincible. But partying, shopping and living a reckless life on new found economic freedom soon begin to take their toll.

During the weekends, to relieve a week's pressure at work and to keep up with peers, they often indulge in chain smoking and binge drinking.

Not everybody is tough enough to handle the pressure and the lifestyle. Along with health, the invariable casualty is family and relationships, says Baskar whose confidential counseling service sees a surfeit of 19- to 29-year-olds with issues like loneliness, relationship problems and marriage breakdowns.

Globalization and the outsourcing industry in particular have brought rapid and enormous changes in the culture of India cities such as Bangalore, Hyderabad and Pune. In the homes of outsourcing workers, clashes over the traditional system of arranged marriages and the working woman's domestic role are common.

The industry is concerned, says Firstsource's Calapa. Firstsource provides on-call counselors and quality checks on food served to workers - and is currently considering a proposal to offer workers options for their work hours and workdays.

Other companies are doing their bit too, providing counselors, doctors and nutritionists, as well as gym facilities and medical insurance. However, many young workers simply ignore the help available to them.

Outsourcing worker Ash looks back and rues that he entered the job market so young. He now thinks he would have liked to pursue graduate studies. But now he is in, he feels there is no quick exit from the outsourcing industry and wants to stay healthy and get ahead.

Foreign Banks Cut Workforce in India

Foreign and private banks have been cutting down on their workforce in India, according to the profile of banks that Reserve Bank of India released on Wednesday.

The report on the key financial indicators of the bank shows how banks those were on a hiring spree until 2007-08, sacked people to contain costs and improve profitability.

In the case of foreign banks, some such as Standard Chartered, HSBC and ABN Amro have cut their workforce by a few hundred numbers, while private banks, such as ICICI Bank, reduced its workforce by almost 5,500 from 40,686 employees in 2007-08 to 34,597 in 2008-09.

The economic downturn that hit major financial institutions in the country in the past year also affected banks. With the rise in non-performing assets and reducing loan growth, banks were forced to implement a series of cost cutting measures, including trimming of workforce.

According to the report, banks like HDFC and Axis have, however, been recruiting people as their total number of employees has gone up year-on-year. The report that highlights business figures of all the scheduled commercial banks showed a rise in the employee force of all the nationalised banks. Reduced workforce reflected in higher number of business and profit per employee for all the major scheduled commercial banks.

Entry Level Salaries Down by 20% in IT

Bangalore: One may boast of being employed in IT in the current scene, however they have to work twice as much for getting an interview and the annual salary is peanuts compared to earlier days. A worsening economic crisis, increased availability of skilled workers and lower demand for software services have brought down the entry-level salaries for IT professionals in the country by up to 20 percent, according to experts tracking the sector.


Every year, around 3,00,000 computer science and engineering graduates seek employment with hundreds of tech firms, including big names such as Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys and Wipro. This year, more than half of them were left unemployed because tech firms were already finding it tough to manage resources sitting on the bench, according to Economic Times.

"The entry-level salaries are down by at least 10-16 percent. Last year, a number of companies gave away offer letters but did not recruit. On top of that, there is a new pool of qualified professionals being churned out this year - all this has created an oversupply in the entry-level IT job market where salaries typically sway between Rs. 3 lakh per annum and Rs. 5 lakh on the higher side," said GC Jayaprakash, Principal Consultant of Stanton Chase International.

Until two years ago, almost all computer and engineering graduates were absorbed by India's outsourcing industry, comprising top tech firms such as TCS, Infosys, Wipro and many others. However, as customers delayed and shelved outsourcing projects, these tech firms also postponed campus hirings. Many students had to approach potential employers directly, since companies did not visit their campuses for placements. "We formed groups and toured companies, and agreed to settle at lower salaries because it's better to be employed at lower salary than having no job at all," said Srilekha Varma, who recently accepted a job offer from a Chennai-based IT firm specializing in banking software.

In a normal year, computer science graduates were offered entry-level salaries of Rs. 3.5-5 lakh. However, companies are now hiring freshers at Rs 1.7-3.5 lakh. However, human resources heads at tech firms, including Wipro, India's third-largest software exporter, say professionals have become more realistic about what they want from their employers. "I don't think salaries have come down, but the environment has indeed helped us in containing salary hikes," Pratik Kumar, Head of Human Resources at Wipro said.

But few companies have not forgotten the offers made. TCS said it would do new campus hiring in January 2010 and will honor all 24,000 offers made for financial year (FY09). "Around 1,800 graduates have joined us in second quarter (Q2) and another 8,000 will join in Q3, rest of the graduates will join based on the demand," a TCS spokeswoman said. Infosys said for FY10, it has made 20,000 campus offers and expects an 80 percent conversion rate i.e. 16,000 of these offers to join the company. "We are honoring all our hiring commitments," an Infosys spokeswoman said.

Wipro BPO to hire 15000

Kozhikode: Wipro BPO has announced that it will hire 15,000 employees this year, for its operations at different centers in India. The company, which is part of the IT bellwether Wipro has already recruited around 8,000 employees and is in the process of selecting another 7,000 over the next six months, for which it has been holding job fairs in association with various universities, reports The Hindu Business Line.

Out of the total recruitments, 1,200 - 1,500 people will be hired from the southern region. Praveen Kamath, Associate Vice President of Wipro-BPO, said that the company now had over 24,000 employees on its roll at 15 locations spread across Eastern Europe, China and the Philippines, apart from India. "The BPO division was one of the fastest growing businesses of Wipro and it would require about 15,000 new recruits annually," he added.

According to Kamath, the company is focusing on undergraduates for 40 percent of the requirement and graduates and post-graduates for the remaining 60 percent. Besides, the company will also provide opportunity for the further education of the selected candidates while being on the job.

Cheer Up!! Hiring and Salary Hikes are Back

Bangalore: Many were predicting six months back that the Indian IT industry would be entering its twilight zone, but now there are indications that these predictions may go wrong. Several IT companies have restarted hiring and are giving salary hikes to their employees.



"That phase of drastic downturn is behind us," says S Ramadorai, CEO of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). "There's stability now. The deal pipeline is encouraging, but the time it takes to close a deal remains long. And many customers are yet to fully open up their IT budgets," Ramadorai added.

While IT majors like TCS, Wipro and Cognizant have started promotions and salary hikes, Kris Gopalakrishnan, CEO and Managing Director of Infosys feels that things are looking better now, however the company prefers to wait and watch before giving any promotions or hikes, reports The Economic Times.

The recovery of the defamed Satyam Computer Services under the new owner Mahindra Satyam has also proved to be a boon for nearly 28,000 employees across all levels, with the restoration of the variable pay. The variable component is 10 percent at the entry level, 20 percent at the middle level and 30 percent at the senior management level. IT bellwether Wipro has lifted its freeze on hikes and promotions, at least for some employees.

Manpower supply company TeamLease, which saw its open positions drop significantly from 10,000 a month to 800 post-recession, has in the past couple of months seen those numbers rise to 3,500.

With the current trend companies have also started showing more confidence in the Indian market. Information infrastructure company, EMC has announced that it will invest $1.5 billion in India over the next five years, a level of investment from a single company that the sector has not seen in close to two years. Partha Iyengar, Regional Research Director in Gartner India, says the number of calls the company gets from customers for directions and consulting has gone up sharply in the last 3-4 months.

The Indian IT industry was one of the worst hit by the recession on account of its dependence on international markets - especially the U.S. and European markets. The freeze on IT budgets by companies around the world meant that new orders dried up. Industry association Nasscom initially forecast that IT exports would grow by 22-24 percent in 2008-09, but as the recession deepened, this was revised down to 16 percent. For this fiscal, the association has projected a 4-7 percent growth to $48-50 billion.

Wipro TCS Hiring Plan

We have cut down on at least 20% of the total recruitment,” said a senior HR official of TCS in Gujarat. “Our focus has largely been to hire more experienced candidates than go in for fresh recruits”, the official added.

Similarly, international IT firm, Keane is not just going slow on recruitments, but have also adopted a ‘just-in-time-approach’ on hiring. “Since the last three years, we used to hire 30-40 % more people than the previous year. But this year we are sticking to almost the same number of people we recruited last year”, said Keane India senior VP S G Raja Sekharan.

“Since January we have already made job offers to 3,000 students, which is in the range of what we had did last year. We do not want to make job offers and scale back (if market conditions deteriorate),” he said.

“The confidence level in the markets is low compared to the levels that existed three years back. It is very difficult to forecast where the markets are headed in the recent future,” Mr Sekharan said.

IT-giant Wipro has introduced stringent ‘quality measures’ into their hiring pattern. “We have made our process even more stringent and brought in measures to ensure quality of hire. Innovative measures have been introduced including setting up a Talent Quality Group within Talent Acquisition”, said Wipro Talent Acquisition VP Pradeep Bahirwani.

In order to hire quality manpower, Wiro has also started campus hiring in US and UK. “We have pioneered programmes like Wipro Academy of Software Excellence (WASE) which helps graduates learn while they work on projects with us. We have an active campus program in India and have also started campus hiring in US and UK,” he said.

Infy: The Company to Work for?

When Everyone else is facing the heat and laying off resources infy has stunned everyone by offering a 8% hike in Salary to its Fresher Recruits. Infy is recruiting 20000 Freshers.

Infy knows that it is there for the long haul, and it is using this downturn to showcase to the world that they are different.

Infy has extended the Training period of employees so that they are better trained to take on higher and complex responsibilities going forward.

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