The employment market in India current challenges and the road ahead

Employment Market Market Research

Tulika Tripathi, Michael Page International Managing Director for India, provides an overview of the employment market in India, the issues facing employers and jobseekers, the experience of working with management institutes and the outlook for the employment market ahead. The India recruitment market is relatively insular to global fluctuations mainly due to a strong domestic market. However, over the past six months the market has seen some softening in demand because of the crisis in the Eurozone. This has mainly affected the financial services sector where certain entities require more headcount approvals before making offers, thereby significantly delaying certain hiring processes. Nevertheless, there are areas of opportunity stemming from a number of banks moving their finance and operations hubs to India in order to control costs. Key employment market trends and issues The key gaps in the employment market are in middle to senior level hiring where a number of clients across industries are looking for strong management talent and individuals with some international exposure. This is true for both Indian conglomerates that are increasingly looking at expanding their businesses internationally as well as multinationals, who now want their India operations to be more in line with their international businesses.

Hot sectors While there is growth across all sectors, we see good growth in particular within operations and finance roles in the financial services sector as global banks increasingly outsource their global operations and finance teams and offshore them to India. We are also seeing a surge in demand for strong supply chain professionals because of greater emphasis on managing costs, and in the coming months we foresee a strong demand for retail professionals as Foreign Direct Investment in the retail sector should be allowed soon. Top 3 concerns for job seekers and employers Within the India employment market, the top three concerns of job seekers are:

1. Package: Job seekers are looking for a 15-20% increase in packages in order to make a new move. 2. Employer Brand: With the volume of global companies across multiple sectors opening offices in India and the importance of strong employer brands, job seekers are therefore keen to work for a company with a quality brand. Against this sentiment, organisations need to invest more in developing their brands, especially if they are new and/or lesser known in the India market. 3. Challenge: Job scope is a strong area of concern and at the middle to senior level job seekers are looking for roles that offer much more visibility among senior management as well as good autonomy. While the top three concerns of employers are:

1. Retention: The Indian employment market is volatile, with organisations seeing an average of 15% attrition. Employers are now trying to explore various way to stem this attrition including adding more position levels within the company to enable the ability to offer more frequent promotions to employees. 2. Engagement: This is especially true at the management level where employers are increasingly looking at how to

engage and retain middle to senior management employees through offering such benefits as stronger career planning and long term incentives. 3. Talent acquisition: This is a concern for employers when dealing with a number of local staffing firms as many of them lack both reactivity and the ability to target CVs to the clients requirements. Employment market outlook The employment market in India is very nascent, with a majority of hiring taking place through in-house recruitment teams as well as internal referrals. As roles in India have become more complex and India becomes increasingly important in the global economic landscape, there is a need for a specialist, far reaching recruitment solution that can attract the widest pool of relevant candidates possible from both within India and internationally. We believe the employment market in India is moving from being fragmented to more organised, and there is a changing mindset of companies to make more space for international recruitment firms such as Michael Page International.

Working with management institutes This is the first time Michael Page International, India has been on campus and we have made around 30 offers to students from the top 10 business schools of India. Most students had never considered a career in recruitment as this has traditionally not been considered a preferred career option in India due to the nature of the local market. Talking to students on the day, it was clear that it was an eye opening experience for them and a number of them realised that the career options offered by Michael Page International were among some of the best on campus. We were very happy with the level of talent we saw and are already planning to be back on campus next year along with some of the institutes successful alumni.

Looking forward India is a diverse and relationship-driven market that requires patience and resilience in order to tap into it. Nevertheless, the Indian recruitment industry has been growing at a cumulative rate of 21% year on year for the past four years and the mindset is definitely changing. There is a lot of opportunity and the Michael Page International team in India is in a great position to make the most of it. Watch this space!