In the past decade, the job profile of India’s employables has changed.
Previously, most jobs were to be found with industry and the government. Nowadays, most of the jobs are in the service sector.
In this sector, the Banking Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI) industry has emerged as the biggest incremental employer.
Industry players are coping with the pressure to fill new vacancies, while students work long hours to ensure that are absorbed in this high growth sector.
To discuss the changing paradigms in the BFSI job market, DNA invited some of the best players for a discussion. They included (in alphabetical order) Dhruv Desai, senior vice-president, corporate HR & OD from Angel Broking, Madhavi Lall, regional head, human resources, (India and south Asia), Standard Chartered Bank, Abhijit Mishra, senior vice-president, human resources, HDFC Bank, Capt. Rahul Sharma, senior vice-president & head, human resources & training, India Infoline Ltd (IIFL), and D Vijayalakshmi, executive director (personnel) Life Insurance Corporation (LIC).
During this Conversation moderated by DNA’s RN Bhaskar, panelists gave their views about the tremendous growth they see for this sector. Excerpts:
DNA: One of the reasons we wanted this discussion under the Conversations banner is because we believe this sector, along with the IT industry, is likely to become the biggest incremental employer in India in the coming years. This is of great interest to our readers, and young parents who want to advise their children on the possible employment and growth opportunities in the near future. What is your perspective?
Vijayalakshmi: The growth in jobs in LIC is not as large as [the need for] jobs. For instance, we advertised for 300 vacancies at the entry level for assistant administrative officers and got two lakh applications.
But for the boys and girls [it is necessary to know that] there is a market outside as well. We got two lakh applications even though we charge Rs400 per application.
DNA: Madhavi, how do you see this industry’s growth.
Lall: It is growing the way this economy is growing today. If you look at the entire country, there are many underbanked areas where banking will have to spread.
I don’t have any clear estimates of the kind of growth there will be, but if you look at last year, the number of people who joined the financial sector — the published data available on the internet — indicate that the sector has witnessed a 15% growth. I definitely see it growing.
DNA: What about the public sector? Do you see the numbers growing?
Vijayalakshmi: The answer is ‘yes’ and ‘no’. Yes, the numbers will definitely grow. I can talk of the insurance sector with authority because definitely what you call insurance penetration or insurance density is increasing manifold.
But we may not recruit at the same pace that we used earlier maybe because of technological advancement. On account of this we don’t require that much of manpower. In fact, LIC already employs around 1.16lakh people.
So we may grow at 15-20% but recruitment may be slower because LIC has stopped recruitment for some time.
DNA: Is this because you are outsourcing?
Vijayalakshmi: No, no! The reason could be because, post-nationalisation, we recruited people in very large numbers. Then suddenly we discovered technology and realised that we did not need that many people.
We just froze recruitment. Then we take into account the numbers of people who will retire.So, over the next 10 years, you will probably see 10% going out, and 15% coming in.That is how I would view numbers.
Even so, in addition to this direct employment, there is the indirect employment of agencies.LIC today has 14 lakh agents, and the private insurance companies put together also add another 14-15 lakh.
DNA: Dhruv, how do you see growth? You are in a different segment altogether...
Desai: I, along with Rahul [Sharma], represent the broking fraternity.If you look at India’s GDP growth, we are growing at 8-10% over the last 5 to 10 years. As a result we see disposable income increasing.
Today the Indian retail participation is around $30 billion in the equity market but there is a survey by CLSA that in the next 20 years, Indian retail participation would reach $600 billion. I am certain the banking sector and whole BFSI sector can capture a share of this [growing] market.
So, as an organisation, as an industry, we are recruiting more and more people.Our biggest challenge is not the quantity of people that is available but the quality. [Thus we have] to train and help create finishing schools for converting that raw manpower into quality manpower.
For instance, at Angel Broking we run a finishing school we call Angel Academy. So of the 5,000 people we hire, about 30-40% are trained and groomed so that they can be converted into productive manpower at the end of the dayThe rest of the 60-70% of the manpower we require comes from other sources.
Running an academy is not our core strength and is also not adding much value. So we want to keep it to the minimum.
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