The only real solution to the jobs crisis, whether in India or abroad, is to direct tech innovation towards job enhancing sectors, and disincentivising job-replacing ones, observes R Jagannathan.
Tier-II and tier-III towns have a reason to rejoice.
Tea estates across Assam and West Bengal, which were hitherto closed owing to the lockdown, opened in April.
The company employs 4,200 people across three centres in Noida and Bengaluru, which together employ a fourth of its global workforce
The encouraging news, however, is that India features among the top four countries out of 44 nations that projected a positive hiring trend.
While for clients it has led to increased outsourcing, they are no more worried about which shore the service providers are executing the project in - offshore, onshore or near-shore - because remote working has become the standard norm in the industry, giving rise to a "no shore" kind of model.
India's services sector lost momentum in July as demand was curtailed by competitive pressures, elevated inflation and unfavourable weather, a monthly survey said on Wednesday. The seasonally adjusted S&P Global India Services PMI Business Activity Index fell from 59.2 in June to 55.5 in July, pointing to the slowest rate of growth in four months. For the 12th straight month, the services sector witnessed an expansion in output. In Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) parlance, a print above 50 means expansion while a score below 50 denotes contraction.
Adapting to an inevitable digital intervention is India's only hope at beating a long-standing job crisis. To do so, focus on quality education and better skill development is fundamental, says Dr Yogesh Kumar Bhatt.
In its latest report for the office market, property consultant Cushman and Wakefield said the total seats leased by enterprises could cross 50,000 during the 2021 calendar year. Enterprises had leased 18,213 seats in the first six months of the 2020 calendar year and 36,255 desks during the entire last year.
The Indian authorities feared that these apps were transferring consumer data to locations outside the country, especially China, in an unauthorised and surreptitious manner. With servers in India, the data of local consumers would be stored in the country.
Edtech giant Byju's is set to lay off nearly 2,500, or 5 per cent, of its employees as part of an "optimisation" plan. The move by India's most valuable start-up comes amid a funding winter and steep losses. "To avoid redundancies and duplication of roles, and by leveraging technology better, around 5 per cent of Byju's 50,000-strong workforce is expected to be rationalised across product, content, media, and technology teams in a phased manner," said the company in a statement. In June, Byju's laid off about 600 employees at its group companies -WhiteHat Jr and Toppr.
Companies in India are expected to dole out an average increment of 7.3 per cent to employees this year amid faster-than-expected economic recovery and revival in business and consumer confidence, according to a survey. The first phase of the 2021 Workforce and Increment Trends Survey by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India LLP (DTTILLP) also said the average increment this year will be higher than 4.4 per cent seen in 2020 but lower than 8.6 per cent given by companies in 2019. As many as 92 per cent companies that participated in the survey plan to give an increment in 2021 compared to only 60 per cent last year.
Google is followed by Sony India who won the runner-up position.
The McKinsey report said faster employment growth at 12 million non-farm jobs annually is needed in the post-Covid period till 2029-30, up from just four million created each year between 2012 and 2018.
Experts have said the reservation provision will set unrealistic goals for organisational hiring, but will also reduce productivity by reducing the available talent pool to a few people within the state.
'It is a sign of a bigger problem which is coming in the next six months.'
India's manufacturing sector activity hit the highest level in eight months in July, driven by a significant rise in business orders, a monthly survey said on Monday. The seasonally adjusted S&P Global India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index rose from 53.9 in June to 56.4 in July, reflecting the strongest improvement in the health of the sector in eight months. The July PMI data pointed to an improvement in overall operating conditions for the 13th straight month.
India's manufacturing sector activities witnessed faster growth in April amid quicker increases in production as well as factory orders, and renewed expansion in international sales, a monthly survey said on Monday. The seasonally adjusted S&P Global India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) rose from 54.0 in March to 54.7 in April, as a retreat of COVID-19 restrictions continued to support demand. The April PMI data pointed to an improvement in overall operating conditions for the tenth straight month. In PMI parlance, a print above 50 means expansion, while a score below 50 denotes contraction.
Global software major Microsoft is the 'most attractive employer' in India, while IT, telecom and ITes are the most preferred sectors by the workforce, a survey by HR services firm Randstad said.
Google will move to a hybrid work week, where most Googlers spend approximately three days in the office and two days "wherever they work best", according to a note by Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai.
Falling valuations, slowing funding rounds and faltering investor sentiment seem to have prompted many start-ups to lay off employees in a bid to conserve cash. The latest to do so is SoftBank-backed Cars24, a leading e-commerce platform for pre-owned vehicles, which has laid off over 600 staff, according to sources in the know. The move, they said, is aimed at conserving cash amid cautious investor sentiment and a slowdown in funding.
With longer work hours and a work from home set-up during the COVID-19 pandemic, women bore the maximum brunt by performing a dual role as a working professional as well as a caregiver.
Eight of the 30 companies in the BSE Sensex that shared data reported 99 fatalities in 2016-17 against 86 in the previous year. These lives were lost due to industrial accidents at manufacturing facilities. Fatalities owing to road accidents were excluded from the count.
Shashi Tharoor, minister of state for HRD, outlines his plans for the young in India.
In an exclusive interview with Shobha Warrier, Shashi Tharoor, minister of state for human resources development, outlines his plans for the young in India.
Construction sector is one of the largest seasonal employment providers in India
'Generic skills are in abundance, but technological advancements have left staple skills redundant.' 'It is why employers are now looking for alternate sources of hiring -- deploying gig workers, looking at Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities for relevant talent.'
'We would like to develop Andhra Pradesh into a logistics hub not only for India, but also for South Asia.'
Noting that the situation on the ground was "very difficult", the Congress leader said it was high time the prime minister announced a relief package for the poor and a financial stimulus for the economy.
The first step to keeping your job safe, experts tell Rediff.com's Divya Nair, is understanding why layoffs happen.
'I love clean air but Russia and China, you look at a map you have all these spots and India and many others are spewing it in. What do you suggest?'
Speaking on the National Technology Day, Swaminathan said, "I would like to commend and congratulate the minister and colleagues for having contained so far the COVID pandemic in India and having kept both the number of cases and the number of deaths very low compared to other countries."
'While the poor have little say in shaping India's intellectual or public discourse, they do have a significant role in deciding political outcomes,' points out Roshan Kishore.
The study, published in the journal Science on Wednesday, assessed the disease transmission patterns in 5,75,071 individuals exposed to 84,965 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the two states based on data collected by tens of thousands of contact tracers.
While the first wave of moving work to India was driven by cost considerations, increasingly companies are banking on local talent to add value to their business by jointly developing products and solutions.
Uber on Tuesday said it is laying off about 600 employees in India -- about a quarter of its staff in the country -- as business has taken a major hit amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The development comes days after rival Ola had announced laying off 1,400 people from its rides, financial services and food business.
Nirmala Sitharaman's messaging was clear when she presented a well-balanced Budget with an eye on state elections in nine states followed by a general election next year, observes Ramesh Menon.
Top companies added employees at 3% CAGR from 2003-04 to 2013-14, while revenues grew at 18%.
Most of the large Indian IT services players, such as TCS, Infosys, Wipro, and HCL Tech, have signalled increased offshoring efforts and opting for local hires in the US, primarily to address the immigration-related challenges.
