Hi Radhika,

Posting current headlines



HR Headlines of the Month

Corporate India Is Now More Anxious

The recent layoffs in the IT, BPO, banking and airlines industry has added to the anxiety of corporate India. The layoff and subsequent reinstatement of the 1900 Jet Airways employees, as well as announcements by Kingfisher Airlines indicating additional layoffs have only aggravated the anxiety. According to HR analysts, the manner in which the layoffs were conducted at Jet Airways was unfortunate and unplanned. IT and banking companies, which have weeded out similar umber of people, have done it in a more strategic and objective manner. Mr. Sandeep Chaudhary, Business Header, Hewitt Associates’ Rewards Consulting practice, said, “One of the effects of the current downturn and spate of layoffs is that attrition across sectors has gone down by at least 3% points. Salary levels and increases have taken a beating and have dropped from as recently as three months ago.” The overall impact of the financial crisis will continue to affect jobs and salaries over the next 6 to 12 months. The only difference between the layoffs in India and the US is that if a certain position is made redundant in the US the employee is made to leave irrespective of his or her performances, whereas in Indian companies will usually try and retain top performers in other roles even if their positions are made redundant.
Source: 21-10-08 Business Standard


HR Personnel – The Most Worried Lot In Companies,

Courtesy The Slowdown Human resources (HR) personnel across sectors are a worried lot with most companies either retrenching or freezing recruitment plans. All those HR executives who are responsible for recruitments are being moved to other HR functions like training and development and other day-to-day HR functions, or being taken on contract. If things worsen, there could also be layoffs. Besides that, demand for contractual employees in the HR team across various sectors is expected to increase. Vodafone, for instance, has 25 per cent of its HR staff on a contract basis. Companies like Wipro, Infosys, TCS and iGate, too, have a mix of contractual employees in their HR team. Also, the role of managed staff services (wherein the HR staff working for companies are on the payrolls of the placement agencies and not employees of the companies) and recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) is expected to gain traction.
Source: 08-11-08 Business Standard





Low Salary Hikes On The Cards For Chief Executives

Top executives are likely to get low salary hikes as India Inc tightens it belt. According to HR experts, while the salary hikes of CEO and top executives could range between zero to five percent, for the middle and lower management it is expected to be around 8 to 10 percent. Mr. Sanjeev Sethi, Corporate Director, Imperial Hotels, said, “Though at company level, we have thought of hikes of about 8 percent, CEO pay is going to increase by only 5 percent this year.” This is a considerable drop, as last year the hospitality sector saw an increase of around 20 to 25 percent in the salaries of chief executives. Similarly, Bharti Airtel’s could also get lesser salary hikes this year. HR consultants anticipate bad times for non-performing CEOs. Mr. Vijay Rai, an independent HR consultant said, “The Indian economy is now addicted to growth. Hence the accountability of the chief executives will now be hugely under the scanner.”
Source: 20-10-07 Hindustan Times


Infy Says India IT Is Safe

Mr. Nandan Nilekani, Co-Chairman of Infosys Technologies, said that there will be no pink slips in the Indian Information Technology (IT) as it has countered the impact of the current global financial tsunami well. “The fundamentals in the information technology sector are strong,” he added.
Source: 23-10-08 Hindustan Times


Students Of IIM-A Fear Hiring Slowdown

Already disturbed by images of employees walking out jobless from the Lehman Brothers office and with the global markets in crisis, the brains of Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, are keeping their fingers tightly crossed as the placement season. Job markets are shrinking drastically, and placements across all B-schools in the country are expected to run into rough waters. The signs are not favorable, as the number of pre-placement offers has come down, salaries offered are lower and there is a near absence of the erstwhile biggest recruiters like finance companies and investment banks from the list of companies. While students admitted that everyone would certainly get a good job, record-breaking dollar-salaries would not be heard of this year. Though placement officials at the IIM-A strictly maintain that recruitments have not been affected by the current recession, faculty members in the know have confided that a 10-15% fall is expected in the number of offers.
Source: 28-10-08 DNA


SBI will hire 25,000 new hands, according to bank chairman O P Bhat.

Fresh recruitment will be done this fiscal — 20 ,000 in the clerical cadre and 5,000 supervisory staff also Bank of India will hire 10,000 over the next few months. This, on top of over 30,000 fresh recruits in 2008-09. In next 2 years, the bank plans to take in 75,000. Accenture will hire 10,000 people in India by 2010, says COO Stephen J Rohleder.
Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, top global management consultants, is also looking to hire 3,500 in India in three years.

Source: Times of India





CAMPUS HIRING –

IIM Bangalore and IIM Calcutta say all their students have got placements for next year.

TCS will hire 30,000-35,000 people this year, says a spokesperson. TCS made 24,789 technical campus offers for 2009-10, a 13% jump over this year.

Infosys is sticking to plans of hiring 25,000 people this fiscal, says CEO Kris Gopalakrishnan. Infosys has made around 20,000 offers for next year.

Satyam plans to hire 8,000-10,000 people this fiscal, says HR head S V Krishnan.

L&T will hire 10,000 people over the next three years, according to CMD A M Naik.

Maruti has decided to hire 1,000 fresh hands despite the sluggishness in the auto sector, says a company spokesman.
Source: Times of India




The Laid-off US Employees Seek Job-Refuge in China

The crisis in the US is driving ‘job-refugees’ including Wall Street bankers and financial managers, to look for career opportunities in China. However, recruiters and trainers who know about the China market feel that their chances of making it in the dragon country are less. Mr. Andrew Hupert, who teaches International Negotiation at New York University’s Shanghai campus and is a consultant for leading multinationals, says, “Lately, I’ve been hearing from lots of people, including experienced bankers and financial managers, who see the Wall Street economy falling off the cliff, are convinced that China is the answer to their prayers and are curious about the chances of finding gainful employment here.” But the passage t o China is unlikely to work out smoothly for many of these job seekers. Mr. Hupert explained, “Wall Street-style finance was never highly respected in China - and after everything that’s happened this year, it’s sort of looked upon like a war crime.” In any case, China doesn’t have developed, deep financial markets of the sort Hong Kong, New York or London do. “And the kind of financial infrastructure that these Wall Street professionals are used to working with doesn’t exist here,” he added.
Source: 07-11-08 DNA



Tata-owned Corus To Trim 400 Jobs In The UK
Corus, owned by the Tata Steel Group, has announced plans to slash 400 jobs at its distribution arm, saying it had been operating in a 'volatile and fluctuating' market. The proposed job losses will be spread across Britain, including 100 in the West Midlands, nearly 100 in North Wales, 50 in South Wales and 50 in Leeds. The company employs 2,400 workers at 36 sites in Britain and Ireland.
Source: 07-10-08 DNA





Steel Firms Freeze Hiring
Different industries like IT, aviation, textile and financial services, are witnessing a trimming of their workforce to rein in costs but the Indian steel sector is still in a wait and watch mode. Till now, there have been no job cuts in the sector, but steel manufacturers like JSW Steel and Ispat Industries have frozen new recruitments for the time being. Mr. Anirudh Singh, senior VP- corporate HR, JSW Steel Ltd said, "We are not hiring people for the time being. We have hired a good number last month, but due to the slowdown, we have frozen new recruitments temporarily." On the other hand, Essar Steel Ltd has no plans to cut down on head count or salary package of employees as its salary to turnover ratio is minimal. Last year, employee costs stood at 2% of the company's revenues, an Essar Steel spokesperson said. Mr. Pawan Burde, an analyst with Angel Broking said, "There may be a recruitment freeze, but job cuts look unlikely in the steel sector as the overall employee cost is just 7-10% of revenues in the steel segment. Curtailing temporary or contractual staff differs from company to company."
Source: 12-11-08 Business Standard



REgards,
GIRISH