Jobs are Back

The dragon of economic recession has engulfed every sector and undoubtedly the employment sector in the India job market scenario is the first one to have a hard hit because of this. Globally numerous companies are laying off their employees. In India the conditions in the beginning of 2009 were quiet similar when a job dip came and with this the job market reached at 29%. But due to financial insight of India's leaders, the Indian job market is showing the promising growth and it has gone to 51% in the second quarter. So there is a rising trend in the Indian job market. These figures are shown in the quarterly survey by Global Placement Report on employment trends for Indian job market with 30 key countries. It says that Indian's job market is the strongest.

India is one of the strongest nations that is growing profusely in every sector. Hyderabad, NCR, Bangalore & Chandigarh have become the IT hubs that generates numerous jobs even during the recession period in India job market. According to the Boston Consulting Group the sector like IT, health, banking, retail and outsourcing along with others will have the requirement of 85-90 million people even during the hard economic times. The another survey by HR consultancy Manpower projects is showing that jobs in India are not much affected by the recession. In Hyderabad the largest banks are opening their branches and huge construction for that is going on at a fast pace. In the near future it is expected to generate 2,00,000 new jobs in financial and banking domain freshers as well as experienced fellows.

Also the outsourcing sector like BPO, KPO & other call center are the major job providers in India. HCL, Wipro, Converges, Excel are few to name are the top guns in BPO industry. These big companies are recruiting numerous candidates. Apart from this, the sectors of health, insurance, pharma are also showing significant growth, which again is the symbol for rising trend in Indian job market. If we consider the govt sector then Indian Railways is the biggest employer in India with 1.42 million employees. Not to forget Indian railways is also the fourth largest employer in the world. All the state level, the railway industry is expected to hire new professionals in the coming years.

Top ten companies by NASSCOM (the National Association of Software & Services Companies) who are hiring:

• Tata Consultancy Services
• Infosys Technologies
• Wipro Ltd
• Cognizant Technology Solutions (India)
• HCL Technologies
• HP India
• MphasiS Ltd
• Intelenet Global Services Ltd
• IBM-Daksh Business Process Services Pvt Ltd
• Genpact India Pvt Ltd

Job market in India is thus flourishing and giving all sorts of career opportunities.

Effect of Recession on Government Jobs in India and Recession Proof Jobs

Effect of Recession on Government Jobs in India and Recession Proof Jobs

In the month of June 2009 AIR INDIA employees haven't received their salaries. The number of employees have also been slashed down due to recession. So it is not only the private sector but also the government jobs in India that are getting jolts from the the US recession. So all government jobs are not recession proof although the impact of US recession on government jobs in India is too low. This is the one side of the coin but if we look at the other side of it then we will find that Indian youth is shifting towards government jobs as they need security rather than money in corporate or private sector. Since 2008 Indian youth is seeing and facing recession that has given birth to such urges.

Banking today has become the most promising sector in India as there are numerous jobs in banking. In 2009 State Bank of India (SBI) has announced 1200 posts and hired deserving candidates. Even Dena Bank has declared around 2500 posts for different sectors this year.

Now if we look at the private sector then most of the IT companies in India were not hiring in 2009 so India has become the valley of job seekers. Moreover most of the IT companies were doing lay offs that has led to this paradigm shift. Because of this vary reason people are now moving towards the government jobs in India as these are comparatively more stable and has additional advantages of PF and stuff like that. Most of the engineers, IT trained professionals, fashion designers, and retail sector professionals are finding government jobs in India.

But there is also a good news as Global Manpower Survey is showing that year 2010 will see more jobs in India. A survey of 3600 employers was done in the first quarter of 2009 which has shown that 63% of employers wont change the hiring pattern. The survey has also shown 6% increase in hiring.

List of Recession Proof Jobs according to Forbes

1. Sales Representative
2. Software Design and Development
3. Nursing
4. Accounting Executive
5. Accounting Staff
6. Networking and System Administration
7. Administrative Assistant
8. Business Analysis and Software Implementation
9. Business Analysis Research
10. Finance Staff

IT Job Market Buzzing again

Headhunters looking out for 30,000 lateral entries in top firms
IT majors are back to hiring experienced hands after an eight-month hiatus beginning January. Counting for the early signals from headhunters in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai, tech shops may be looking out for up to 30,000 lateral entries, if not more, before this calendar runs out. Recruitment agencies say they have started getting mandates for hiring in small batches.

At least two recruitment firms that FC spoke to confirmed that IT companies had mandated lateral hiring of between 20,000 and 30,000 employees in the past one month alone, though they were unwilling to hazard a guess on how the numbers might stack up by the end of 2009. They said there were still uncertainties about hiring intentions of their clients.

In the boom years of 2006, 2007 and 2008, the IT/ITeS industry created up to 400,000 new jobs every year of which about 150,000 were lateral entries. And while the global recession set in September 2008, hiring continued right through December. It was only in January-August this year that hiring trickled down to just a few hundred.

Headhunters confide that most large Indian and foreign firms, including the likes of IBM and Accenture, are back to hiring. Infosys and TCS have about more lateral hirings from the October-December quarter. So are some of the mid-sized body shops Sotware engineers with 4-8 years experience are mostly in demand.

Kris Lakshmikanth, CEO of The Head Hunters India said even tier-II IT companies were scouting for experienced personnel. “Depending on the size of the companies, the number of vacancies is generally between 50-100.”

Infosys board member T V Mohandas Pai told Financial Chronicle that his company had increased the forecast of additional headcount for financial year 2010 to 20,000 from 18,000 because it wanted to recruit more experienced people. This was needed to balance out the company’s staff pyramid, 70 per cent of which rests on freshers.

A HR industry tracker, who did not want to be named, said Infosys and TCS were also looking for business and vertical heads with over 12 years experience.

Sudhakar Balakrishnan, CEO of Adecco India, said, “There is some buoyancy now in the lateral hiring market for IT companies. Companies, though keeping the final numbers under wraps, are definitely looking to hire laterally. With revenues going up and the environment stabilising, they feel that a lot of requirements would be coming up.’’

While declining to give definite growth numbers, T Muralidharan, CMD of Hyderabad-based TMI Group said, the mandates received by his agency for filling up vacancies at top software firms in the past month was equal to what he had got in the preceding five months.

E Balaji, CEO of Chennai-based Ma Foi Management Consultants, said while the signs were good, firms were basically opening up positions that they had frozen earlier. “We have to wait and see how this scenario will pan out in the future,” he added. His opinion was shared by Gautam Sinha, CEO of TVA Allegis, a specialty IT/ITeS

hiring firm. He said, “The situation has improved but we are still 3-6 months away from lateral hiring going up to the pre-economic crisis numbers. The pipeline is good but big hirings will depend on the market condition in the US in coming months.”

He also explained that right now the companies were looking for professionals with 4-8 years experience. The big numbers would come when firms start looking out for professionals with 2-4 years experience, he said.

Adobe Layoffs

Adobe Systems, known for its Photoshop editing programme and Acrobat document software, announced that it was cutting some 680 jobs worldwide, about nine percent of its workforce.

Adobe, in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), said it would incur between $65 million and $71 million in restructuring charges because of the layoffs.

Adobe said the jobs being cut only involve employees who were with the San Jose, California-based company ahead of its October acquisition of Web analytics firm Omniture Inc.

Adobe, which employed 7,564 people worldwide at the end of August, also produces the Flash and Shockwave software used in many games and Internet applications.

Adobe shares were trading 0.14 percent higher at 36.65 dollars in after-hours electronic trading in New York.

 

Nominal Spending US GDP

QA with Laid off Employee

A friend of mine got laid off just as a new report found 467,000 people got pink slips last month. That puts our national unemployment rate at 9.5 percent, a 26-year high. I talked to my friend Leah, an engineer in Los Angeles, about filing for unemployment, coping with unexpected emotions, and visiting Yosemite. Disclosure: I changed her name to protect her privacy.

What was your initial reaction when your boss told you you were getting laid off?

I sat there for a full minute, quiet, with all these things going through my head…I felt shocked and angry and betrayed and then just confused. I think I finally said “I don’t understand.”

What didn’t you understand?

I didn’t understand why because to everyone’s knowledge in the office we were safe. We had plenty of work. But I found out (in my bosses office) that a big project or two had just recently gone on hold indefinitely. Which totally messed up everything. So they had to make some changes.

Have you ever been laid off before?

No.

How are you coping, two weeks after?

Now I feel fine, comfortable. The first three days were tough. I felt sad but I felt relieved.

Why were you relieved?

In a way I had been somewhat frustrated with the way things were going at the office, personnel-wise, project-wise, and I had had some thoughts about doing something different. But no specific thoughts. I wasn’t searching for anything. The relief was now I can think about these other things in more detail.

Did you see it coming?

I remember about two or three weeks before I got laid off that 25 people in a company in San Francisco that was one of our clients got laid off. I remember being surprised, thinking “Wow I really can’t take this all for granted anymore. I don’t think it really sank in because one of those emotions that went through my head, that still does, is that I felt really foolish thinking that my history with the company and the fact that my project was strong was keeping me safe. My project still is going. It has a source of funding. I felt foolish for linking those things. I took it for granted even after telling myself that I shouldn’t.

How prepared financially were you for something like this?
I have some savings that could probably get me through a couple months so I’m not panicking yet.

Financially, have you done anything different since getting laid off?
I’ve been eating out less, drinking less, making choices that I don’t have to spend as much money. Looking back on my expenses, at least 50 percent were eating out.

Are you cutting out a few things entirely or making reductions across the board?

I will probably cut down across the board and not on anyone thing. I’ll put off big purchases that I otherwise would have gone ahead and done. For example I want a new pair of running shoes. But that’s like $100 give or take so when I got laid off, I said I can live without a new pair of running shoes.

Has your attitude about the recession changed since getting laid off?

I’m definitely more interested in unemployment benefits news and economic stimulus package news because now it actually does affect me or could affect me. I never really paid attention to that before, not for lack of interest but for lack of time.

What are you most concerned about?
To be honest I haven’t started to think very far in the future yet because I am really relived to just be able to live in the moment and relax. It’s summer and I know that I have a little bit of a cushion to take a month to just breathe.

What are you least concerned about?
I’m actually not real concerned about not ever being able to get another job because I feel the market will improve, it may just be a matter of time. I have certain knowledge and strengths and excellent referrals. My bosses have said they would be more than happy to help me out with any references. We left on very good friendly terms.

Do you still have health care?
Yes I got a severance package through the end of July and then I have to figure out COBRA.

What is your plan for the next 6 months?

I haven’t thought more than a month and a half out. I’ve got two weeks until a triathlon race and then I’m going to take about 2 weeks to travel through California, visit friends, go through Yosemite, go through Mammoth. I’ll fly back to New York, go see my parents.

Anything else you want to add?
I did file for unemployment. Haven’t heard anything back. It was easy to file online but I haven’t heard anything. It takes a while.

Questions You should ask an interviewer

Trust me: it’s different now. In this economy, where unemployment is high and you have many more job seekers than jobs, you can’t afford to improvise on the interview. So yes, if you got called in to talk about a position, be psyched. But then knuckle down and do some prep work.

Find out as much as you can about the position you’re interviewing for, how the process will go, and who will be interviewing you. Research the people you’ll be talking to (use Google, LinkedIn, Facebook and real-life contacts) so you have common ground to discuss, and check out the company and the competition.

Wait, you’re not done yet. You still have to ace the interview. These five questions will pull you ahead of the pack:

1. “In the first 30, 60, and 90 days what projects would you like to have completed and taken off your list?” When candidates go on interviews very rarely do they know for sure what the hiring manager is specifically looking for. This one question will give you valuable insight as to what is most important to them. If you can ask this one question very early on in the interview you have the blueprint as to specifically what is most important to them.
2. “What one skill if mastered would add the most value to your department?” All companies now want to hire the best or someone that has the drive to be the best. By asking the question above, you show that you are driven to be the best. You will distinguish yourself as someone that is willing to go the extra mile, work hard and become a valuable asset to the company.
3. “What challenges and opportunities is the company and the department facing?” Show your possible employer that you are interested in the company and that you are up for the challenge. This also gives you the chance to differentiate yourself from the competition. You can provide valuable insight on how you would handle the situation.laid off 101 on notebook paper
4. “What are your company goals for the year and what are the department goals?” Everybody likes someone that is goal focused, so if you ask this question, you will standout.
5. “What more can I tell you about myself to let you know that I am the right person for this job?” This one question can make or break your chances with the company. Why? Because you show sincere interest in the company and that you want the job. This also shows that you care and want to make sure all questions were answered thoroughly.

How not to look desperate

Desperate times can lead you to show how desperate really are to land that job. But no matter how tough a time you’ve been having—dwindling savings, unemployment running out, bills overdue—that’s the last impression you want to give a prospective employer.

Job hunting is like dating. People are attracted to confidence and turned off by the hard-up. So how can you seem self-assured while looking for work and land that job as the market heats up? Keep in mind these dos and don’ts.

DO
Remember that the more you have going on, the less desperate you will feel. So keep your pipeline full. Have a job search plan to follow. Set a goal of meeting five new people a week, whether it’s for coffee, lunch or an informational interview.

Follow up with the people you’ve met—and when you call or email, make sure to have a noteworthy topic to discuss. Stay on top of industry and company news easily with Google Alerts—go to the alerts tab in Google and set it up to send you relevant company information. When you see something interesting, forward it along with a comment. Also another way to reach out is to invite the person to connect on linkedin.com

Once you get an interview, be prepared to be asked about your down time. Don’t let the question faze you. Practice your response at home if it helps. Explain how productive you’ve been. Discuss what you’ve learned. “I’ve been strategically aligning myself with contacts that would give me access to organizations XYZ, ABC, and DEF.” “I’ve been keeping on top of the industry, and based on my research on your organization, here’s why I could add tremendous value to your team.”

Leverage a positive response. If, after a first interview you’re told you are a strong candidate, don’t act overjoyed—or to take the opportunity for granted. Follow up on the other resumes you have sent out, and send out emails to contacts and employers. Explain that you would like to make sure you’ve explored all your options before you wrap up your job search. Employers hate losing out on a good candidate.

DON’T
Call daily to follow up on a resume or an interview. Just like in relationships, that reeks of desperation.

Act non-committal or over confident—it will come back to haunt you. Any follow up conversations should be pleasant and your enthusiasm to join their organization should be transparent.

Don’t tell an employer that you took to time to find yourself, and that’s why you have been out of work so long. You will come off as lazy and not serious about your career.

Don’t try to engage a recruiter to help get you feedback at a company you already interviewed with. A recruiter only receives a commission for a candidate that has not already applied to a company.

When working with a recruiter, don’t contact the hiring manager directly. Always let the recruiter do the follow up.

Love in the Recessionary times

Timing-wise, it wasn’t the most promising beginning.

He was headed to the opposite coast. But the thousands of miles of separation was the least of our potential problems.

We started dating in the midst of one of the most stressful periods in both of our lives. I had just been laid off from a job I loved, and my industry seemed to be imploding. He would be gone for an unspecified period of time to reorganize his company and — he hoped — keep it from going under.

We were worried about money and questioning our careers. One of us had been stripped of title and paycheck, and was adjusting to a new identity. The other was wondering whether the enterprise he had built from scratch could survive the year.

I’m pretty certain that I would still be carrying on my relationship if I hadn’t lost my job. But it probably would have progressed more slowly.

I know people whose budding romances have sunk in similar circumstances. One friend who lost her job at a big law firm has spent months on the hunt, and her anxiety has spilled into her love life. Earlier this year she started seeing a nice, cute, bright guy — who soon suggested they put the dating on hold until she was in a better place. He didn’t want her to be the one bright spot in her life.

It’s entirely possible that they would have hit a roadblock in better times. The recession may have throw a lot of things out of whack, but romantic chemistry isn’t about the eonomy, stupid. I’m pretty certain that I would still be carrying on my relationship if I hadn’t lost my job. But it probably would have progressed more slowly. The downturn not only gave us more time and flexibility, it forced us to refocus our values and allowed us to see each other more clearly.

In the boom years, there was unrelenting competition for my time and attention. My days endurance races from breakfasts meetings to work to lunches to work to evenings full of dinners, parties, benefits and dates. My refrigerator was empty but for a stick of butter, a few bottles of Champagne and (usually) some chocolate. There was room for someone else, but not a lot of room.

So was learning more about each other. We couldn’t hide behind work or clothes or status symbols, or distract ourselves wth exciting events and activities. He got to see how I defined myself without a job, and whether I could handle not being able to buy new clothes or vacations. Early on, I made myself contemplate the possibility that he both might have to start over financially. And I realized that the recession had already shown him to be optimistic and resourceful, so that was okay with me.

I did have some worrisome moments. I panicked one evening when he said that if his company went under he would move in so I could support us both. “Please tell me you’re joking,” I begged.

Now that I am back at a full-time job, I suppose I could keep us afloat. But ironically, employment has put more stress on my relationship than unemployment did. I work long hours, am adjusting to new demands. It seems there’s a downside to the upturn.

Laid off Twice

What do these three people have in common?

Susan Guldenschuh, an HR supervisor in Kentucky

Russ Singletary, a researcher now working for an Atlanta company

Attorney Inna Efimchik

Laid off? Close.

All three are victims of a phenomenon that seems particular to this downturn: The double layoff. (I should actually be on this list too—read to the bottom.)

With the recession in its terrible twos and the unemployment rate expected to rise above 10 percent, it should be little surprise that some people have taken an extra job hit from the downturn. There are probably even some triple layoffs out there.

Organizations that have managed to stay afloat are going under. Companies that weathered earlier phases of the economic storm are now running out of resources and having to downsize—maybe yet again, as my former employer did this week. And as a new hire you’re likely to be the first to go.

It can be a tremendous blow to feel like you’ve landed on your feet, only to be knocked right back on your ass. Today, the Wall Street Journal offered some advice for those laid off twice. I don’t think there’s anything in the story that specifically helps the double-laid-off, but the tips are useful for anyone seeking a job. (Check out additional advice on our Laid Off 101 page.) For example:

* Don’t let stigma get you—be up front about what’s happened. “I have been laid off twice in the worst economy in 50 years.”
* Don’t let yourself feel like a loser. It will come through in your job interviews and keep you from finding a new position. (Read How Not to Look Desperate.)
* Do take advantage of social networking. Complete your LinkedIn profile, and use Twitter to communicate your knowledge about your industry. Put the links to your profiles in your email signatures.
* Do volunteer somewhere that has a connection with a company you want to work for.

I’d add one more: Come up with a name for your situation. At the end of 2008, I was laid off from my job at magazine publisher Conde Nast. A few weeks later the company rehired me to work at Domino magazine. The beloved pub folded that very day. And voila—pre-fired enters the lexicon! And yes, I now have a job.

Could Blogging Cost You Your Unemployment Check?

A laid-off lawyer’s personal blog, which brought her a total of $238.75 over the course of several months, prompted the geniuses at the New York State Department of Labor to cut off her benefits.

Seems the DOL had conflicting opinions over whether the money she “made” from her blog about meal deals constituted residual income (money made from past work, like royalties from a book) or self-employment income. So they put her checks on hold while they investigate her “business,” according to a story at Forbes.com.

Blogging isn’t the only hazard the unemployed face. A friend of mine who was laid off in November is fighting the DOL over her charity work. This enterprising woman started the New York branch of a national organization that helps teenage girls. She’s is paid not a penny for the hours she spends on the organization, but the DOL wants to withhold her benefits because she’s on the board of the chapter–a “corporation.”

Are we really going to penalize unemployed people for volunteering?

Need we elaborate on how wasteful, counter-productive and just plain stupid this is? Many employment experts are advising laid-off Americans to blog and tweet in order to stay on top of industry news, learn new skills and keep their name in circulation. If they throw some Google ads up on the site to cover costs and make $1 a day (which is often the resulting payoff), they risk losing their safety net.

The country’s non-profits have been hit hard by the downturn, but at least they’ve benefited from the high unemployment, as bright, motivated professionals offer up their free time. Are we really going to penalize unemployed people for volunteering, which could also help them find new jobs as they make connections and expand their skills?

Meanwhile, a cash-strapped state is spending precious tax dollars to investigate sums like $240–which the lawyer wasn’t even hiding. She felt obliged to declare it to the state, and got punished for her candor.

Nelson: Bad Economy Means We Should Wreck Economy, Destroy Planet, Let Health Care Languish

I suspect we’re going to be hearing a lot more of this sort of thing in the weeks to come:

Democrat Ben Nelson, a Senator from Nebraska, said the slumping economy and rising joblessness will be factors as Congress considers climate change and health care legislation. They are also driving concerns about the budget deficit, which widened to a record $1.42 trillion in the fiscal year that ended on Sept. 30, he said.

“When the economy’s not strong there’s a lot of interest in controlling spending,” Nelson said.

This really makes no sense. If Nelson thinks the health care and climate legislation before congress would have a ruinous economic impact or something, then of course he shouldn’t vote for either bill. But that’s independent of the current state of the labor market. In reality, neither bill will have much of any impact on a 12-18 month time horizon since their provisions take time to phase-in. Both are aimed at long-term problems—the economic devastation wreaked by an out-of-control health care system and the environmental devastation wreaked by out-of-control greenhouse gas pollution. There’s never a perfect day to tackle a long-run problem, but delaying action doesn’t help the economy in the short-run and only makes it harder to tackle the problem.

On controlling spending, this is nuts. With the economy weak Nelson wants to do . . . what? Lay off teachers? Halt infrastructure projects? Make sure that kids whose parents are unemployed end up malnourished? The economy is suffering from a catastrophic collapse in overall spending with households, businesses, states, and municipalities all pulling back. If the federal government pulls back too we’re going to go down the drain.

November : Unemplyment rate in US at highest 10.2 percen

Nov. 6 (Bloomberg) -- The unemployment rate in the U.S. jumped to 10.2 percent in October, the highest level since 1983, casting a pall over the prospects for a sustained recovery and risking further erosion of President Barack Obama’s popularity.

Payrolls fell by 190,000 last month, more than forecast by economists, a Labor Department report showed today in Washington. The jobless rate rose from 9.8 percent in September. Factory payrolls dropped by the most in four months, and the average workweek held at a record low.

Treasury two-year notes rose on bets the Federal Reserve is more likely to maintain its pledge to keep interest rates near zero. The figures prompted Obama, who signed a bill today extending jobless benefits, to promise fresh measures to help put some of the 15.7 million unemployed Americans back to work.

“We will certainly have very bad payroll numbers in November and December,” said Harm Bandholz, an economist at UniCredit Global Research in New York, whose forecast for a 10.1 percent unemployment rate matched the highest among economists surveyed by Bloomberg. “We don’t foresee businesses going on a hiring spree anytime soon.”

Two-year note yields fell four basis points, or 0.03 percentage point, to 0.84 percent at 4:45 p.m. in New York. The yield touched 0.83 percent, the lowest since Oct. 2. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Stock Index closed up 0.3% to 1069.30 after falling as much as 0.7 percent.

Steeper Drop

Payrolls were forecast to drop 175,000 after an initially reported 263,000 decline for September, according to the median estimate of 84 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. The jobless rate was projected to rise to 9.9 percent.

Obama signed into law a measure extending a tax credit of up to $8,000 for homebuyers and benefits for unemployed workers, and he promised to pursue further measures to create jobs.

“My economic team is looking at ideas such as additional investments in our aging roads and bridges, incentives to encourage families and business to make buildings more energy efficient,” additional tax cuts, and more steps to ease the flow of credit to small business and promote exports, he said today at the White House.

Jason McKinnon, 34, a San Francisco resident, is among those who could benefit from the measure Obama signed today to add up to 20 additional weeks of unemployment insurance.

Expired Benefits

McKinnon lost his $18-an-hour job in April as a video-game software analyst, and last month his benefits ran out. He said he has sent out hundreds of resumes to companies such as Facebook Inc. and Sony Corp., received about 50 responses and no offers. “I’m feeling like there’s less jobs out there and more qualified people,” he said in a telephone interview. Now he plans to take night classes at City College of San Francisco to improve his chances.

For congressional Democrats facing challengers in midterm elections next year, the continuing erosion in the job market puts them at political risk. Voters on Nov. 3 overwhelmingly cited unease with the economy and worries about jobs as they ousted the Democratic governor of New Jersey and installed a Republican governor in Virginia after eight years of Democratic rule there. Obama carried both states in 2008.

The entire House of Representatives, 34 senators and 37 governors are up for re-election in 2010.

Since Obama took office in January, the economy has lost 3.49 million jobs. The U.S. economy has lost 7.3 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007, when the unemployment rate stood at 4.9 percent.

The administration said last week that the $787 billion stimulus package plan signed into law in February was directly responsible for saving or creating about 640,000 jobs.

Under-Employment Record

The so-called underemployment rate -- which includes part- time workers who’d prefer a full-time position and people who want work but have given up looking -- reached a record 17.5 percent from 17 percent in September, today’s report showed.

“We’ve got lots of people just giving up and leaving the labor force,” said Julia Coronado, a former Fed economist who now works at BNP Paribas in New York. “Consumer incomes are under pressure, and that raises questions about the sustainability of the improvement we’ve seen in consumer spending.”

Some people are pulling up stakes and moving to where they think the job prospects may be brighter. Beth Rubin, 41, lost her position as a receptionist at the law firm Goldstein Bershad & Fried, PC in Southfield, Michigan, in October. The resident of Ferndale, a Detroit suburb, is now selling her furniture and moving to Georgia. “I’m looking to get a job in Georgia, and I don’t know about the job market there, but I can tell you Michigan is horrible,” Rubin said in a telephone interview.

Average Work Week

The average work week held at a record low of 33 hours in October, while average weekly earnings rose to $617.76 from $616.11 a month earlier. Workers’ average hourly earnings were 2.4 percent higher than October 2008, the smallest gain since 2004.

Some companies are cutting payrolls amid concern spending will cool as government-assistance programs wane. The New Brunswick, New Jersey-based Johnson & Johnson, the world’s largest health-products company, said Nov. 3 it will shrink its workforce by as much as 7,000 workers.

Factory payrolls dropped 61,000 after decreasing 45,000 in the prior month, today’s report showed. The median forecast by economists called for a drop of 42,000. The decline included a gain of 4,600 jobs in auto manufacturing and parts industries.

Auto Sales

Sales of cars and light trucks rebounded last month after plunging in the wake of the government’s so-called cash-for- clunkers incentive plan. Vehicles sold at a 10.5 million annual pace in October, up from a 9.2 million rate in September.

Inventories at U.S. wholesalers dropped in September for a 13th consecutive month, a separate report today from the Commerce Department showed, clearing the way for a pickup in orders as sales improve.

Today’s report contained some bright spots. Revisions added 91,000 to payroll figures previously reported for September and August, and the number of temporary workers rose by 34,000, the third consecutive gain.

Payrolls at temporary-help agencies often turn up before total employment because companies are not certain increases in demand will be sustainable enough to warrant the expense of taking on permanent staff.

‘Very Ugly’

“The rise in the unemployment rate is very ugly,” Ethan Harris, head of North America economic research at BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television in New York.

The U.S. economy expanded last quarter for the first time in a year, growing at a 3.5 percent pace as government incentives spurred consumers to spend more on homes and automobiles.

Some companies are gaining confidence. Deere & Co., the world’s largest maker of agricultural equipment, said last week it’s recalling 452 workers, the majority of manufacturing employees dismissed earlier this year at a factory in Iowa.

Fed officials met in Washington this week and signaled that a return to economic growth alone won’t result in higher interest rates. Economist Joseph LaVorgna of Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. in New York said in a note to clients that the central bank “has never raised rates with unemployment rising.”

Productivity gains may be bad news for job seekers

Productivity gains may be bad news for job seekers

WASHINGTON — Companies across the economy are finding ways to do more with fewer workers, dimming hopes that hiring will take off anytime soon.

Employers became leaner and more efficient in the third quarter. Wages, meantime, remain flat or falling. The result is that productivity — output per hour of work — jumped at the fastest pace in six years.

The good news for companies, though, may be bad news for the jobless. As long as companies can get their workers to produce more, they have little reason to hire — at least until consumer spending picks up. And the squeeze on incomes could depress consumer spending, putting the economic recovery at risk.

Still, some economists were encouraged by the productivity report. They say that eventually, employers won’t be able to squeeze more from their staffs. They will then have to ramp up hiring — something that could happen next year, even though the jobless rate is expected to hit double digits.

Productivity rose at an annual rate of 9.5 percent in the July-September quarter, the Labor Department said Thursday. That was much better than the 6.4 percent gain economists had expected. Unit labor costs fell at a 5.2 percent rate.

While companies aren’t doing much hiring, they’re not cutting as many workers, either. The number of newly laid-off workers filing claims for unemployment benefits last week fell to the lowest level in 10 months.

On Wall Street, the better-than-expected jobless claims report and an upbeat forecast from Cisco Systems Inc. buoyed investors. The Dow Jones industrial average added nearly 204 points to 10,005.96, and broader indexes also gained.

The 9.5 percent productivity rise followed a 6.9 percent surge in the second quarter and was the fastest since a 9.7 percent increase in the third quarter of 2003.

The gain reflected that the overall economy, as measured by the gross domestic product, grew for the first time in a year — at an annual rate of 3.5 percent. The higher output came as companies continued to lay off workers. That meant employers produced more with fewer workers.

The 5.2 percent drop in unit labor costs marked the third straight decline and was larger than the 4 percent decrease economists were expecting.

Productivity is the key ingredient to rising living standards. It lets companies pay their workers higher wages. Those increases tend to be financed by increased output, rather than higher costs for products.

But as they struggled with the recession, companies boosted productivity while continuing to lay off workers. Many produced more goods; others kept their output down but slashed costs. Companies kept wages down by freezing pay or imposing unpaid furloughs.

“Survival meant cutting costs as rapidly as possible and fulfilling orders with the fewest number of workers,” said Joel Naroff, chief economist at Naroff Economic Advisors.

Some companies in hard-hit sectors have managed to boost productivity despite job cuts. They’ve had to find ways to stretch their remaining workers to keep up with demand.

Fein Tool North America, a Cincinnati company that supplies auto parts manufacturers, has cut about 100 workers, or 33 percent of its staff. But Fein president Ralph Hardt said the company can still fill its orders by using more overtime shifts and temporary workers.

“We are asking more of our people than ever before,” he said.

Fein also has made technical changes, including increasing their presses’ strokes per minute so they can stamp more metal.

Hardt said he plans to rehire once the economy picks up again. But he’s hesitant to do so quickly.

“If I see signs of recovery, I am going to hire back, but I am going to be very prudent,” he said.

Elsewhere, Union Pacific has found ways to reduce the number of crews it needs and is using more fuel-efficient locomotives. The rail company also rewarded train engineers who saved fuel on their routes with free gas cards for their personal vehicles, all while furloughing nearly 10 percent of its 45,000 workers.

Naroff said hiring could remain sluggish for months. But other analysts are more optimistic. They were encouraged by the productivity report, noting that companies are starting to reach the limits of how much they can produce with their shrunken work forces.

“We believe businesses will have to start to increase hours worked and payrolls around the turn of the year since they cannot expect their current work force to sustain such rapid productivity growth,” said Michelle Meyer, an economist at Barclays Capital.

The problem is that consumer demand could falter once the government removes the stimulus programs it has put in place, such as record-low interest rates and homebuyer tax credits. Companies could stop hiring if they think demand will slump again.

Temporary surges in labor productivity tend to follow the end of a downturn, said Cliff Waldman, an economist with trade group Manufacturers Alliance.

“You’re having a turn in output from negative to positive with a significantly depleted labor force,” he said. “It gives the illusion that productivity has increased. It’s really just arithmetic more than reality.”

In a separate report, the Labor Department said first-time claims for jobless benefits last week fell by 20,000 to a seasonally adjusted 512,000. That’s better than economists’ estimates of 523,000.

Economists closely watch initial claims, which are considered a gauge of the pace of layoffs and an indication of employers’ willingness to hire new workers.

The four-week average of jobless claims, which smooths fluctuations, dropped to 523,750, its ninth straight decline. That’s 135,000 below the peak for the recession, reached in early April.

Despite the improvement, initial claims remain well above the roughly 400,000 that economists say will signal job creation.

Another 4.1 million people claimed extended unemployment benefits in the week ended Oct. 17, the latest data available, an increase of about 100,000 from the previous week. Congress has added 53 weeks of emergency aid on top of the 26 weeks typically provided by states.

Still, as roughly 7,000 Americans run out of extended benefits every day, Congress has approved legislation that would add another 14 to 20 weeks. President Barack Obama is expected to sign the bill.

The National Employment Law Project, an advocacy group, estimates that up to 1.3 million people would exhaust their benefits without the extension.

Economists expect the nation lost a net total of 175,000 jobs last month, adding to the 7.2 million lost since the recession began in December 2007. And many expect the jobless rate could rise as high as 10.5 percent before the recovery gains enough steam to start pushing it down next summer.

Lower Salaries for Laid of Techies

Bangalore: Till a few months ago, IT professional T.V. George was earning Rs.70,000 per month, plus perks. But after losing his high-paying job, and being unemployed for three months, George, 31, has started giving tuitions in mathematics and physics to aspiring engineering students in his neighbourhood.


"Now, I am earning Rs.15,000 per month. It's been hard. I got married only a few months before losing my job. So, when I lost my job, I was in a difficult position. Thankfully, I had some savings. With the savings, I am paying my rent and for a few other necessities," George, who was employed with a top U.S. IT company, told IANS.

"After losing my job, I tried my best to get a new job. But I remained unlucky. So to help run my home, I decided to give coaching classes to aspiring engineering students."

George is not alone. Recession has hit the IT sector in Bangalore, with scores of techies losing their jobs. Some have been forced to take up low-paying jobs as they wait to bounce back when the recession ends.

Dipankar Dutta, 27, working with an Indian IT company as software engineer, lost his job almost eight months ago.

Today he has a job, but as a content writer in a tech firm.

"Thankfully, writing has been my forte. So, I landed this job of a content writer. Otherwise I would have been in a soup. Since I cannot afford to stay in Bangalore without a job, I compromised and settled for the new job with a much lower pay package," said Dutta.

Scores of IT and ITES professionals in Bangalore have lost their jobs in recent times, an effect of the global economic meltdown. But there is no precise count of the numbers.

According to the latest employment and business outlook report by Bangalore-based staffing firm Teamlease, at 23 percent the attrition rate in this city is higher than in any other city in India.

The report was based on interviews with HR heads, CEOs and senior executives of 495 companies in Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Pune.

"The city accounted for the highest attrition rate. IT accounts for over 80 percent of the city's total labour pool. The attrition rate was 23 percent in the last quarter, against the previous quarter's 16 percent. Much of the attrition could be involuntary attrition (or layoffs)," Teamlease General Manager Surabhi Mathur-Gandhi said.

India's Silicon Valley has seen thousands of people getting pink slips in recent months. And many more are under the threat of losing their jobs.

"It's painful to lose your job, in today's expensive world. Those who have lost their jobs are desperate now, thus they are settling for low paying jobs," Karthik Shekhar, General Secretary of UNITES-Professionals, an unrecognised union of IT/Call Centre/BPO employees, told IANS.

"Every day we meet young men and women who have lost their IT jobs recently. All they want is a job. But getting a job in the IT sector is very difficult. So, they have no option but to settle for jobs outside their fields and that too with low paying packages," Shekhar added.

It's encouraging that today's youths are ready to move ahead in their lives. Instead of waiting for the economy to revive, IT professionals have started exploring other fields and this is a positive sign," said B.N. Gangadhar, professor of psychiatry at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (Nimhans), Bangalore.

Mohammed Khan, a trained software engineer, told IANS: "Initially it was difficult, but I am happy with my choice. After losing my job with an IT firm, now I am working as a sales executive. I am hoping the economy will recover soon and all the techies who have lost their jobs will get new jobs in their field."

Source: IANS

1,80,000 IT Employees may lose jobs

Washington: As many as 180,000 employees in IT and related areas will become jobless this year if the layoff announcements by companies are to maintain the current pace."At the current pace, the year-end total could reach 180,000, which would be the largest annual total since 2003, when technology firms announced 228,325 job cuts," says a report by Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a Chicago-based global consulting firm which tracks job-cut announcements.

Telecommunications, electronics and computer industry companies had cut 140,422 jobs through October 31 this year, says the report, adding that 69,654 tech-sector jobs had been cut in the third quarter of the year alone. The report did not include major layoffs announced since October 31 such as the 5,000 to 6,000 job cuts at Sun Microsystems."

The tech sector is simply the latest victim in this downturn that began last year with the collapse of the housing market, and quickly spread to the financial markets," chief executive John Challenger said in a statement. "Businesses and consumers have slashed their spending and no industry is immune," he added.

The 180,000 job cuts in the tech sector would be the most since 2003 but would still be far fewer than the 695,581 jobs lost in 2001, with the bursting of the dot-com bubble. In 2007, a total of 107,295 tech-sector jobs were cut.

Obama's move to end tax breaks for US firms who outsource

New Delhi: India Inc believes the move by the Barack Obama administration to reduce tax breaks for US firms that ship jobs overseas will hit American companies more than impact on the Indian outsourcing industry.

"It's a more US-US issue rather than one aimed at stopping outsourcing, or off-shoring, or anything to do with India," said Som Mittal, president of the National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom), a representative boddy for the industry.

"If you look at Indian companies operating in the US, or elsewhere, they work there and pay taxes there. Hence, it is not about stopping outsourcing, or off-shoring, but just to collect taxes," Mittal told IANS.

His comments came after President Barack Obama said Monday that the current US tax system gave US-based multinationals that shipped jobs to places like India an unfair advantage over other domestic rivals and wanted corrective steps.

"It's a tax code that says you should pay lower taxes if you create a job in Bangalore, India, than if you create one in Buffalo, New York," Obama said, explaining why he intended to close tax loopholes and crackdown on overseas tax havens.

"I want to see our companies remain the most competitive in the world. But the way to make sure that happens is not to reward our companies for moving jobs off our shores or transferring profits to overseas tax havens."

According to a McKinsey-Nasscom study, the Indian software and outsourcing industry employs some two million people, earning total revenues worth $52 billion, of which nearly $48 billion comes from exports.

The Confederation of Indian Industry also felt that the remarks were more in the nature of posturing and that it was not intended at curbing outsourcing of work by US firms to Indian companies.

"It's an internal issue. It will only reduce their competitiveness," said Hari Bhartia, vice president of the chamber. "It is a populist posture. Perhaps his (Obama's) intention was not the same. However, it sends a wrong message."

According to Girish Vanvari, a tax expert and executive director with accounting and consultancy major KPMG, the Obama administration's move was aimed at keeping American money within the country.

"I don't think this will happen. America is one of the largest free markets in the world - otherwise, you will have companies paying as much as 70 percent of their revenues as taxes," Vanvari told IANS.

Nasscom maintained that large US companies had subsidiaries across the world and that more than 50 percent of their revenues were coming from outside the US. The US move was to ensure that the large profits kept outside are also brought into the tax net.

"President Obama is intending to collect those taxes to create more jobs in US," said the industry lobby that sent a delegation to the US last month to meet lawmakers, urging them to refrain from protectionist measures.

Infosys Technologies, India's second largest software and outsourcing company, also felt that the US proposal was aimed at closing corporate tax loopholes and crack down on overseas tax havens.

"We do not believe that it has anything to do with IT outsourcing done by US corporations," a spokesperson for the company said.

Indian IT Professionals Upset with Obama

Bangalore: Indian IT professionals Tuesday slammed President Barack Obama's move to end tax incentives for US companies that ship jobs to countries like India, saying it will neither benefit the U.S. nor its corporate sector."Obama's latest move was expected, but unwelcome at a time when Bangalore's IT and BPO sectors are already reeling under the global economic meltdown," said Padma Nair, 26, an IT-professional working for a Bangalore-based American company.

"Obama's new policy is not going to benefit anyone, neither the outsourcing companies nor the country the job is outsourced to. The cost saved in outsourcing is higher than that saved by tax exemption," Nair told IANS.Expressing a similar view, Shankar Banerjee, 25, a quality analyst working for another American IT company, said if Obama's proposal is pushed through, it will hit business coming India's way and many Indians would lose their jobs."IT and BPO companies in India have already suffered due to the slowdown. A lot of people have lost jobs. Obama's latest move will cause more problems," added Banerjee.

The comments came after President Obama said Monday that the current US tax system gave US-based multinationals that shipped jobs to places like India an unfair advantage over other domestic rivals and wanted corrective steps."It's a tax code that says you should pay lower taxes if you create a job in Bangalore, India, than if you create one in Buffalo, New York," Obama said, explaining why he intended to close tax loopholes and crackdown on overseas tax havens."I want to see our companies remain the most competitive in the world. But the way to make sure that happens is not to reward our companies for moving jobs off our shores or transferring profits to overseas tax havens."

According to the National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom), the US accounts for about 60 percent of India's software services export revenue. Bangalore-based firms account for one-third of this.A recent study by the association, conducted along with McKinsey, shows the Indian software and outsourcing industry employs some two million people, earning total revenues worth $52 billion, of which nearly $48 billion comes from exports.

American IT companies that have set up offices in Bangalore include Accenture, Microsoft, Amazon, AOL, Cisco, Dell, IBM and Intel.An estimated 600,000 people are employed in Bangalore's software and outsourcing sectors. And industry professionals say many could lose their jobs following Obama's latest move.

UNITES-Professionals India, a trade union for IT enabled services sector, predicts 50,000 employees in India will be handed the pink slip over the next few months. Bangalore, hailed as India's Silicon Valley, could be the worst affected.Concurred Sumana Prasad, 32, an IT employee working for an Indian company: "The slowdown has already hit Bangalore's IT and BPO companies. Obama's latest step will affect more people."

Microsoft: First Time Drop in Revenues

Microsoft reported a drop in quarterly revenues for the first time in the 23 years since it went public.
But investors still gave the world largest software company their approval, sending Microsoft shares higher in after-market trading as its aggressive cost cutting measures preserved profitability.
The Seattle-based company said its revenues dropped 6 per cent to $13.7 billion, compared to the year-ago quarter. Profits of $3 billion represented a 32-per cent drop from the $4.4 billion it earned in the same period last year.
The company has been hit hard by a drop in consumer spending, with people delaying or canceling purchases of new computers. Sales of Microsoft's Windows operating system were down for only the second time in history, but Microsoft said it saw signs that the worst may be over.
"While market conditions remained weak during the quarter, I was pleased with the organisation's ability to offset revenue pressures with the swift implementation of cost-savings initiatives," Microsoft chief financial officer Chris Liddell said.
"We expect the weakness to continue through at least the next quarter."

India Accounts for 38 percent H1B Visas

WASHINGTON: As the US is having a tough time in filling up its annual quota of 65,000 H-1B work visas for highly skilled categories, an official report here has said that the Indian nationals accounted for the 38 per cent of the total H-1B visas issued by the United States last year.
India also accounts for maximum number of people entering the US on L-1 visa, which is primarily used for intra-company transferees, said the Annual Flow Report released by the Office of Immigration Statistics.

The report is based on the information gathered from the I-94 on the number and characteristics of non-immigrant admissions to the US in 2008.

The report said Indian nationals accounted for 157,726 (37.8 per cent) of the 409,619 H-1B Admissions in the US in 2008. In actual figures, this is a drop of about 3,000 as compared to 2007 when 157,613 Indian citizens were admitted to the US on H-1B visas. In 2006 the figure was 125,717.

The annual report reveals that Canada is a distant second in terms of H-1B visa admissions. In 2008 as many as 23,312 Canadian nationals were admitted to the US on this visa category, followed by Britain (19,209), Mexico (16,382) and China (13,828).

"The leading countries of citizenship for H1B admissions in 2008 were India (38 per cent), Canada (5.7 per cent), and the UK (4.7 per cent). Nationals from these three countries accounted for 48 per cent of H1B admissions," the report said.

As for the L-1 visas, it said, in 2008 leading source countries in this category were India (17 per cent), Britain (14 per cent), and Japan (9.8 per cent). The nationals of these three countries accounted for 40 per cent of L1 admissions, it said.

Of the total of 382,776 L-1 Admissions in 2008, as many as 63,156 were from India. This is almost twice the 33,414 admissions in 2006.

This is for the first time that India has topped in the L-1B visa category, which so far was occupied by Britain for the past few years.

With H-1B visas becoming tough in the last few years, Indian companies had increasingly relied on L-1 visa category for sending highly skilled workers to the US.