India Inc presses layoff button; IT jobs take a hit

While fresh hiring has already taken a hit, thanks to the slowing economy, India Inc has for the first time acknowledged that large-scale layoffs are already underway and the job market is likely to get much worse if growth isn't revived fast.

"Layoffs of contractual staff have already started and this could soon move to permanent employees," Ficci president Naina Lal Kidwai has said, warning the government of "a grim employment scenario" unless growth is revived urgently.

"With the slowdown becoming more discernible, fresh hiring is already taking a hit. Unless the growth trajectory is reversed, we will be facing a grim employment scenario," Kidwai said ahead of the meeting of the Prime Minister's Council of Trade and Industry on Monday evening. Estimates indicate that about 10 million people join the workforce every year; however, there remains a yawning gap between the skills acquired by these new entrants and skill set required by the employer.

An internal note of Ficci reviewed by ET states that the job market is 'gloomy' with sectors such as auto, IT and banking seeing thousands of job losses, while most companies have imposed a hiring freeze.

"Particularly in the auto sector, which has been operating at low capacity due to weak demand, thousands of temporary staff has already been laid off and fresh hiring is on a complete freeze," Ficci said. "Job market in other sectors also reflects a slowdown. UBS recently surrendered its commercial banking licence to the RBI and had begun firing employees from its commercial banking division."

The surrender of the banking licence by UBS reflects a growing disenchantment among foreign investors about India's prospects in the near to medium term. Since procuring such an asset like an operating licence in the country entails long and complex procedures, often running into years, this indicates that it doesn't expect the Indian market to be lucrative for a while to come.

" IBM, as a part of its restructuring process, had already started laying off employees in North America and more jobs are likely to be cut in other nations like India," the FICCI note states. Headhunters said the stress in the job market is visible, though it hasn't become an across-the-board phenomenon yet.

"We are seeing a lot of CVs coming from employees in the banking and technology sectors, looking for opportunities in other sectors," said Dony Kuriakose, director of Edge Executive Search, adding that a bigger re-alignment is underway in hiring strategies.

"No one is looking at mass hiring or entry-level recruitments off campus, instead the focus is now on niche, specialised hiring," he said. This poses a serious threat for new entrants into the job market and could lead to high youth unemployment. Over 10 million young Indians join the workforce every year but a mismatch in the skills they have acquired and the skill sets industry is looking for makes it difficult for them to get formal employment.

Industry-wide surveys conducted by Assocham and Ficci show a steady decline in the number of firms that expect to hire more people, which also euphemistically implies that there are greater pressures to downsize staff numbers. For instance, FICCI's Business Confidence Survey found that just 20% respondents expect hiring to go up in the second quarter of 2013-14, down sharply from 30% of firms who indicated the same in the previous quarter.

A similar poll by Assocham found that almost three out of every four firms doesn't expect any new jobs to be created this year. Another indication of harder times in the job market is the sharp decline in margins across the services and manufacturing sectors, which is forcing companies to curb operational costs.

Data compiled by the Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy (CMIE) shows that net sales growth in manufacturing sector eased from 9.3% in the third quarter of 2012-13 to 5.2% in the fourth quarter. The sales decline had hit sectors across the board: food and chemicals, metals, steel, cement and transport equipments.

Profit margins and operating expenses also saw a similar decline in that period, and industry believes things have got worse in the first quarter of this year, with no tangible revival in any of the core economic barometers.

Source : TOI

 Nasscom says IT hiring could come down by 17% this fiscal

Rising automation and low attrition in IT sector may act as a dampener for job seekers with industry body Nasscom expecting hiring to decline by up to 17 per cent to 1,50,000 in the current fiscal.

The 108-billion dollar Indian IT-ITeS sector provides employment to about 3 million professionals.

"I think we will have net additions of 150,000-180,000 this year. Last year it was about 180,000," Nasscom President Som Mittal said when asked about the hiring environment.

Explaining the decline, he added: "It might be less than last year, as it is getting non-linear and lower-end jobs are getting automated. The profile is changing and we need more Domain experts."

Attrition levels have also come down to around 14-15 per cent against the industry average of 20 per cent earlier.

Mittal also said that campus hiring may fall significantly due to change in hiring patterns.

"Campus hiring may be 60 per cent of what it was last year," he said, adding that now employers are focusing more on soft skills and leadership qualities than on technical skills.

According to an analysis, three years back 80 per cent focus was on technical skills "but now only 40 per cent focus is on technical skills and the rest is on soft skills and Domain," Mittal said.

Hiring by India's four largest IT companies dropped by over 60 per cent in the April-June quarter of this year.

The top four IT services exporters made net additions of about 4,100 to their workforce during the quarter this year, against around 10,900 in the year-ago period.

Source : TOI

 Engineering Slowdown: Graduates facing risk of unemployment

It isn't intended to crush young dreams. But for over a million engineering students who are stepping into placement season this month, Nasscom President Som Mittal's confirmation that IT hiring will indeed decline 22% to 1.8 lakh this year does just that.

"Ten years ago, we could hire half the graduating engineering students, but now, there is global uncertainty, automation, non-linear growth," Mittal told ET even as a new engineering placement season gets underway in a rather bleak economic backdrop. "We cannot provide jobs to all."

As it is, a fifth to a third of engineering graduates run the risk of being unemployed. Many others will take jobs well below their technical qualifications, an ET special feature had reported recently.

That's the environment in which hundreds of non-IIT and second-tier colleges are now getting into a placement overdrive. They are roping in newer industries, inviting more companies, settling for salaries that are much lower than the minimum benchmarks, and encouraging more students to entrepreneurship.

"Last year, we had a placement record of 85%, but this time, we would be happy even if we meet 70% of the target," says Guru Venkatesh, V-P (placement and corporate relations) for Dayananda Sagar Institutions. "Up until 2012, there were companies we would not touch...but this year, we are looking at all."
But top-rung institutes, including the Indian Institutes of Technology, remain relatively insulated. "We have no worries. Only 15% of our students join the IT sector and for our 1,200-odd students (all streams included), salaries are expected to go up as well," said an official from the placement office of IIT-Madras. The average salary has gone up from 8.9 lakh for the batch of 2012 to 11.4 lakh for the class of 2013.

Karnataka-based DayanandaSagar Institutions has around a 1,000 students to place. This year, it has decided that companies will have to share slots from day one. Three companies will be allowed to pick students on the same day; only one was allowed earlier.

"IT companies, which used to be the large recruiters, will hire fewer people, so we are trying to get more firms to make up for the numbers," says Venkatesh.

"In 2012, around 100 companies came. This time, we will try for 200, which includes startups," he adds.

Call them all
Colleges are compromising on salaries too. "Last year, we had few companies offering 3-lakh plus salaries. This year, we are open to more companies with salaries of 3 lakh or so," says an official from the placement team of VIT University, based in Tamil Nadu.

The campus has started its placements with companies like DE Shaw, Flipkart and Ebay.

IT companies, which constitute about 70% of hires, usually come later in the year, around September onwards.

Campus placements for engineering colleges start from mid-July and continue for the next eight months. Initially, those from core engineering industries, R&D and sectors like auto, manufacturing take their pick.

The IT mammoths, which hire in large numbers, come only in September but have said their hiring will be muted. "The overall industry will see muted hiring from campus this year," says Pratik Kumar, executive vice-president for HR at Wipro.

Compared with the 2,30,000 IT jobs created in 2012, only 1,80,000 will be generated this year, according to Nasscom. This year, IT giants will hire in September during campus placements and again in May-June, to bulk up their off-campus placements, Mittal adds.

Alternate avenues
Bangalore-based RV College of Engineering is advocating entrepreneurship for its students. It is looking to garner Rs 25 crore in two years for its entrepreneurship cell. In the past 50 years, 12% of its alumni became entrepreneurs and the college hopes more will follow suit. It wants the 1,000-odd engineers graduating every year to apply for more patents and research projects so that they are picked up by core engineering firms and do not have to bank upon just the IT sector.

Delhi Technological University (DTU) will follow a similar strategy. "We have added 15% new recruiters only for computer science and IT students, keeping in mind that hiring numbers per company may take a hit," says NeerajNimwal, training & placement officer for DTU. "Colleges need to look at other sectors like manufacturing, pharma, biotech as recruiters. In fact, I am more worried about those graduating four years later," says Nasscom'sMittal.
Some have done so without delay.

Bengal Engineering and Science University (BESU) has around 500 students, roughly 180 are from streams like IT, computer science, electronics and electrical engineering. MK Sanyal, professor & head, department of HR Management, says placing all these students is getting more challenging as the scenario gets increasingly competitive. Earlier, if 30 companies used to approach the institute for placements, the first 5-6 would absorb all the students, and the others had to be sent back.

"Last year, we felt the heat when several more companies were required to take on all the students. This year, we will have to accommodate even more companies," he says.

Source : TOI

Search where IT companies are poaching talent from

In tough times such as these, when software companies are extremely choosy about hiring, there is one area where the demand for professionals far exceeds supply — data analytics.

The consequence is that large information technology companies are aggressively poaching from small, specialist data analytics companies and driving up salaries for those with skills in this niche. Analysing vast amounts of data to help corporations make more informed business decisions is an emerging opportunity that software services companies are eager to tap into.

While smaller firms such as MuSigma, Fractal Analytics, Manthan Systems, Opera Solutions, AbsoluteData have been early birds in the space, larger companies like Tata consultancy Services, Cognizant, Infosys and Wipro, who were late to the game, are now scrambling for talent.

Rahul Kumar, an engineering graduate who refused to join typical IT companies for an annual salary of Rs 4-5 lakhs, is now being offered jobs that pays as much as Rs 7-10 lakh after he did a specialised data analytics course that trained him in the tools of the trade. Not much different is the case of Ashish Jain who works in the analytics practice at Infosys and is getting job offers with a promise of up to 50% raise.

"As traditional IT services firms try to ramp up their big data and analytic services, places like Manthan systems become a good source of trained talent," said Atul Jalan, chief executive officer of Manthan Systems, which helps retail chains understand their customers better to be able reach out to them with right products at the right time.

"The only way to combat this trend of poaching is to provide the analysts with good opportunities and challenges." The Bangalore-based analytics firm, which has seen a recent spike in employee attrition and looking for ways to improve employee engagement, is maintaining a "bench" of employees to shield itself from the impact of attrition .

"Instead of enforcing a bond on them, we reached out to our employees to understand their needs," said Jalan. Industry analysts estimate that big data and data analytics firms are witnessing employee churn levels of between 15% and 20%, compared to broader IT industry attrition rates of 9% to 14%. "When the need comes, companies are ready to take the talent at any cost.

They make a lucrative offer in terms of salary, global exposure and role, which is difficult to say no to," said Gaurav Vohra, founder and head of Jigsaw Academy , a Bangalore-based institute that offers specialised training in data analytics. The rush for talent is fuelled by the rapid rise in demand for analytics services.

Industry body Nasscom estimates analytics to be a $7.5 billion opportunity—including domestic demand and exports— by 2020 for Indian companies. The smaller, niche firms that are bearing the brunt of this tug-of-war for talent are investing in different strategies to be able to retain talent.

A report by Crisil said small Indian data analytics firms are investing heavily in infrastructure and other office facilities to create an employee-friendly environment. Some companies try to offer stock options as a means of ensuring employee loyalty.

"We obviously need to pay our people fairly and over the last four years, our increments have been a few percentage points higher than the IT industry," said Srikanth Velamakanni , cofounder and CEO of Fractal Analytics that offer predictive analytics solutions to financial services, insurance and consumer goods clients.

Source : TOI

Cognizant gives bonus, out-of-turn promotions

Cognizant, in a bid to retain top talent and to celebrate good quarterly results which beat its own guidance and street expectations, will reward its top dogs with out-of-turn promotions and bonuses in November.

This is over and above the appraisal-based hikes that were paid in July. During the June quarter, Cognizant added $141 million in revenues, its second highest in history and also improved the guidance for the year from 17% to 19%. This is in sharp contrast to last year when the results weren't so good and the company had downgraded its guidance.

"We believe in sharing success with you. In keeping with this philosophy, we are announcing a series of people programmes — which we refer to as "Fully Cognizant" — that will be rolled out over the coming weeks and months," Gordon Coburn, president, wrote in a mail to Cognizant staffers.

The special bonus will also be paid to all employees up to senior associate level who were with the company last year. The bonus will be paid at the end of August.

In addition, out-of-turn promotions, to be effected in November, have been lined up for positions up to senior associates. This promotion cycle will be in addition to the one implemented in July and will be restricted to the top performers . Company officials clarified that promotions will be doled out to those employees who are appraised as 'exceed expectations' .

On the cards are an expansion of its stock equity programme with grants to managers and associate directors with an EA (exceeded all expectations ) rating in the latest appraisal cycle.

Source : TOI

 Eamcet counselling Start on Aug. 19: HC

Hyderabad: Providing relief to over 2 lakh Engineering aspirants in the state, the AP High Court on Thursday cleared the decks for the commencement of Eamcet engineering counselling for admission to BE/B.Tech/B.Pharmacy courses for the current academic year (2013-14).

The counselling had been pushed back by nearly two months due to delays in fee fixation and pending cases in the court.

The High Court in its interim orders directed the state government to start the counselling process on August 19 and notify the same in three newspapers each of English, Telugu and Urdu languages.

The court noted that the admission process, whether under merit quota (category-A) or management quota (category-B), must necessarily be based on merit rankings.

Justice Nooty Ramamohana Rao passed these interim orders on a writ plea filed by city student, T. Leela Krishna, seeking directions to the officials concerned for commencing the admission process.

Petitioner’s counsel S. Niranjan Reddy brought to the court’s notice that the counselling process for engineering courses had not commenced though students had passed their two-year Intermediate course in April/May 2013 and had appeared for Eamcet-2013 on May 10, the results for which were announced on June 5.

Start Eamcet counselling on Aug. 19: HC

Additional advocate general K.G. Krishna Murthy told the court that the Supreme Court had recently considered the application moved by the government by granting extension of the time schedule for commencing the engineering course latest by September 1, 2013.

The AAG added that a few managements of private Engineering colleges had approached the HC and obtained interim relief, preventing the state from regulating both the admission process and the fees liable to be charged by them for management quota seats.

The state had already filed a vacate application which was being considered by the division Bench, he added.

After hearing both sides, the judge directed the state to commence counselling latest by 10.30 am on August 19 as the counselling process for category-A seats takes atleast a week. The process should be undertaken online, he added.

Regarding management quota admissions, the judge said that the college managements should issue notifications in atleast two leading newspapers, inviting applications both in physical format and online.

The AP State Council of Higher Education should also be provided with one set of application forms by each of these colleges for necessary action.

All applications that are received by the managements either in physical form or online should be considered and a merit list should be prepared in descending order. The merit list should be exhibited on the respective websites of the colleges as well as on their notice boards.

Justice Rao also said that the merit list should be made available for scrutiny of the Eamcet convenor (admissions).

He said that admissions for category-B should also be carried out in descending order of merit. This would ensure not only transparency and fairness, but would also serve the larger cause of public interest. The case was adjourned for four weeks.

Source : D
C

GATE 2014 Notification Important Dates & Syllabus Applicn

New in GATE 2014:
Examinations for all the papers will be conducted in ONLINE mode only ( Computer Based Test )

ELIGIBILITY FOR GATE:
Bachelor's degree holders in Engineering / Technology / Architecture / Pharmacy (Post-Diploma / Post-B.Sc / 4 years after 10+2) and those who are in the final year of such programs
Candidates in the final year of the Four-year Bachelors degree program in Science (Post-Diploma / 4 years of 10+2)
Master's degree holders in any branch of Science / Mathematics / Statistics / Computer Applications or equivalent and those who are in final year of such programs
candidates in the second or higher year of the Four-year integrated Masters degree program (Post-B.Sc) in Engineering / Technology
candidates in the fourth or higher year of the Five-year integrated Masters degree program or Dual Degree program in Engineering / Technology
Candidates in the final year of Five-year integrated M.Sc. or Five year integrated B.S.- MS program
Candidates with qualifications obtained through examinations conducted by professional societies recognized by UPSC / AICTE (e.g. AMIE by EI(I), AMICE(I) by ICE(I)) as equivalent to B.E / B.Tech. Those who have completed section A or equivalent of such professional courses are also eligible


GATE 2014 Important Dates:

Application Deadlines:Commencement of online application:2nd September 2013
Last date for submission of online application: 3rd October 2013
Receipt of application with supporting documents at GATE office: 10th October 2013 (Monday)
Official Notification Poster: Click here

Dates of Examination :On Saturdays and Sundays between 1st February 2014 and 2nd March 2014. The exact schedule wi1l be given on the GATE 2014 website.

APPLICATION FEES:
General / OBC male Candidates : Rs. 1500/-
Women Candidates : Rs. 750/-
General / OBC other Candidates : Rs. 1500/-
SC / ST / PD Candidates : Rs. 750/-

GATE 2014 Official Website : http://gate.iitkgp.ac.in/gate2014/

  80,000 engineering seats remain vacant in TN Chennai

As many as 80,689 government quota engineering seats in Tamil Nadu have gone vacant this year. And, colleges will have to pay — it will hit the quality of the education they provide and, in some cases, cause heavy financial losses to the institutions.

Of the 2.05 lakh seats made available through the single window counselling process, which ended on Friday, only 1.24 lakh were filled. Experts said the economic slowdown had impacted engineering education to a large extent: students were making informed decisions and were willing to risk signing up for alternate courses.

District-wise data shows students believe that if it has to be engineering, it has to be in Chennai or nearby places. "Engineering has not lost its charm," said S Vaidhyasubramaniam, dean, planning and development, Sastra University, Thanjavur. "Students are only rejecting engineering education in a bad institution."



Close to 96% of seats in the seven Chennai colleges have been filled, while it is 68% for Kancheepuram and 73.44% for Tiruvallur. Colleges in Virudhunagar, which steadily churns out school toppers, have also been able to fill a good number of seats. The rate of seat allocation in 12 colleges there crossed 76%.

One reason is that the district is home to topnotch institutions like Mepco Schlenk Engineering College. "This keeps other colleges in the region on their toes to face the competition," said an 8expert.

Ariyalur, on the other hand, had the lowest rate of seats allocated. Five colleges in the district have been able to fill only 33% of seats.
When a college fails to fill even 10% of seats, as is the case with some institutions, it has far-reaching consequences. "They cannot offer sustainable quality education," said Vaidhyasubramaniam.

When rural colleges fail to fill more than 10% or 20% of seats, it will have a strong bearing on the rural economy, says C Thangaraj, former vice-chancellor of Anna University of Technology, Chennai. "The government should have insisted on quality maintenance on colleges, and encouraged edupreneurs to start engineering colleges in rural areas," he added.

The All India Council for Technical Education mandates that colleges seeking approval must have facilities commensurate with their intake and not with the number of seats filled. This means that the financial position of colleges, many of which are funded by banks, will already be in the negative. "Those without strong industry backing or without good investments will be forced to approach bigger players for a takeover," said S Alfred Devaparasad, CEO of Alpha Group of Institutions.

Those who don't come in for outright sale will try to cut losses by compromising on faculty salary and additional inputs. Devaprasad believes colleges that know that the trend will change in a few years are likely to keep investing - in faculty, infrastructure and R&D.

Source : TOI

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