The days when even summer placement commitments were not being honoured may be over, say human resources experts. Most HR professionals and consultants DNA Money spoke to said that the sentiments have changed.
Kris Lakshmikanth, founder CEO & MD at The Headhunters India, says, “Next quarter, we should be able see visible hiring across sectors.”
“The time between a person applying and getting the offer was usually in the range of a couple of months and sometimes as short as 15 days. However, after October 2008, it had increased to 6-9 months and no decision was taken whether to recruit a person despite the person getting shortlisted. Now, the time gap has reduced to three months and we are seeing offers are being given to individuals at the general manager and above levels,” Lakshmikanth says.
Some industries are seeing the freeze on hiring being lifted for the junior level staff.
Rajiv Phadke, executive director-HR & corporate communications at
Angel Broking, says, “Salaries in our industry are firming up, though not significant enough. As there is buoyancy in the (capital) market, broking firms have started hiring. Our recruitment drive is on and we have hired 1,100 people recently, mostly from the sales side at the lower level. Some managerial hiring at the senior level too has been happening as we are planning our expansion.”
Asked what the hikes being offered in the stock brokerage industry are, Phadke replies, “If some companies are in a desperate need to hire, then they are even willing to pay a premium. It may even run to 40-100% hike at junior level, depending on how soon the company wants the talent.”
Lakshmikanth of Headhunters India says, “Top level executives got a 6-7% overall hike in calendar year 2009, as against 12-14% in 2008. It should go up. We have heard about some country heads getting 2.5 times hike while shifting to another firm.”
“Job losses and salary cuts have stabilised, but salary growth is not happening,” he adds.
According to Lakshmikanth, a lot of American and European companies are entering India, especially in the defence, nuclear and aerospace sectors. These new companies are hiring.
“Textile, software, office equipment, computers etc firms are discussing a 10% hike to employees in the October-December quarter to restore the salary cut that they had executed. There is confidence now as against six months ago,” the Bangalore-based consultant says.
However, the situation is not like it was in the buoyant days.
E Balaji, CEO and director, Ma foi Management Consultants, says: “Certainly, sentiments are improved, but they are not back to normal levels. Companies are just adopting a wait and watch strategy. Companies are no longer talking about retrenchment. But they have not started hiring large number of people. Some positions that remained vacant for a long time have been filled up.”
But companies still are hiring directly (without intermediaries like HR consultants) to save costs.
Lakshmikanth says that recently, a Bangalore-based IT firm placed an advertisement in the newspaper directly for an interview call. “Though they asked for freshers, about 5,000 candidates both fresh and with one year experience turned up for the interview from all over the south.”
Monday’s Budget announcements, where the corporate taxes was left unchanged and the minimum alternate tax (MAT) increased, are expected to hurt some companies.
It remains to be seen whether the savings on the fringe-benefit tax front would actually be passed on to the employees.
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