With roughly 55 percent of India’s population of 1.2 billion made up of people aged 24 or younger, India was viewed as a country with a massive demographic advantage. Unfortunately, the global slump has turned the advantage into a big disadvantage.India’s economy will probably grow at the slowest pace since 2003 as a global recession cuts overseas orders and domestic demand wanes.It is is expected to expand at less than 6 percent in 2009-10, after recording average annual growth of more than 9 percent in the previous three years.
Here are few sectoral news snippets I read recently (and my translation pertaining to employment)
” Industrial production growth has already decelerated to -0.5%Y during the three months ended February 2009 from a peak of 13.6%Y in the quarter ended January 2007 “
TRANSLATION : Manufacturing jobs are in a disarray. Less additions (or no additions) are seen in 2009-10
“Banks were aggressive in disbursing credit at unusually low rates to marginal borrowers at cycle-peak GDP growth, they are now facing a rise in non-performing loans (NPLs). Expect banks to remain risk-averse, resulting in credit growth slowing to below 10% for 2009 -10”
TRANSLATION : Banking and Financial Services jobs are going to have lowered additions in 2009-10
“None of the IT services firms is hiring and Wipro is not an exception. We will not be hiring till demand picks up. While we will honour all offers that we have made to campus recruits in 2008-09, there can be some delay in bringing them on board,” said Pratik Kumar, EVP – HR , Wipro
TRANSLATION : IT sector is now a weakling. No new additions required for 2009-10
This academic year more than 1 million people are expected to graduate from colleges (in india). Their employment opportunities are grim in the near future.
- Coming Unemployment Problem - April 22, 2009
- Valuation - April 5, 2009
- Medical Tourism Opportunity - August 20, 2008
IMHO, “unemployment” is definitely going to be a problem – however, people are ready to reinvent and innovate to create value for themselves and others. Lets look at social and economic reforms, education and environmental issues as things we have to do now which we have forgotten or overlooked earlier in the mad rush to burn ourselves out.Identify greed as the crime – and reward every task for its long reaching and socially responsible effect it should produce.
there is a interview “”As far as hiring goes, the worst is over and you will see a recovery””
http://www.financialexpress.com/news/quotAs-far-as-hiring-goes-the-worst-is-over-and-you-will-see-a-recoveryquot/451238/
do not be depressed and do not make others too..
May be “attitude” is a lagging indicator then ? 😉
I am just not prepared to believe that there is a huge unemployment problem coming. My index is the arrogance of recent graduates and this index is still quite high!
B-school interns are as unprofessional as ever in completing assignments, IT graduates are still changing jobs at just a few % higher salary (or better yet, “playing” recruiters against each other) and so on.
Really, nothing has changed!
While I do agree with Navin on the existing and expected unemployment scenerio,never the less we cannot ignore the fact that India’s rural market which covers almot 70% of India territory remains untapped.In the last couple we have seen major corporates moving towards the rural market,however there is still a lot of ground to be covered. May be if companies shift their focuse from Urban to rural market I think the the unemployment can be reduced to certain level. But again, rural market has its own dynamics and so to conclude by entering rural markets cannot eliminate unemployment but definately unemployment can be reduced.