Size does matter when it comes to employment generation at a time when companies are wielding an axe on jobs.
Size does matter when it comes to employment generation at a time when companies are wielding an axe on jobs, as insurance giant LIC said on Monday that it would employ 11 lakh more agents by March 2011 to double its field workforce.
"They (private insurers) are talking about 30,000. We are talking about 11-12 lakh and that is the difference. (In) three years, we want to double the number of agents," LIC chairman TS Vijayan said on comparison with private sector competitors in terms of hiring plans.
"We don't talk about thousands. We talk about lakhs. Last year, we ended with 11 lakh plus agents and we would like to increase it by a minimum 25 per cent by March, 2009. This is a target we have taken ourselves and I think we will be able to do it," he said.
During the current year, the country's largest insurer recruited about two lakh insurance agents across the length and breadth of the country.
This excludes hiring plans for development officers, he clarified, saying that during the current financial year alone, LIC has recruited 4,500 officers and the next year the number could go up by up to 5,000.
Currently, LIC has about 24,000 development officers across the country.
To compete with LIC, private life insurers are also recruiting agents to expand their businesses and reach, but the numbers are much less than the largest player.
For example, Reliance Life is in the process of adding 90,000 agents and 2,500 managers, while Metlife and Max New York Life would increase advisors' strength by 30,000 agents by the end of the current fiscal.
Asked whether the recruitment of high-profile agents by a private insurer deters the insurance giant, Vijayan said, "we have a large number of high-profile agents."
Union railway minister Lalu Yadav's daughter is an agent with LIC, he said, adding, "they (high profile agents) usually operate in their own circle. Ordinary person may not know he or she is an agent."
He admitted that such high profile agents bring good business to the public sector insurance player.
He also said that many prominent personalities had taken LIC agency during early days of their career. Today any boy or girl coming out of college gets a jobs in the market whether it is BPO or anything, he said.
However, once upon a time people coming out of college did not have readymade job, Vijayan said, adding, so many people after completing their education always look for the agency.
LIC is planning to elevate the status of their agents akin to bank business correspondent.
"Banks are now having banking correspondents we would like to elevate the status of agents to that of correspondents who can collect premium," he said.
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