Randstad's net employee addition could stagnate this year due to slowdown

India's stood addition at 10,000-12,000, as opposed to a 67% growth last year; however, agency says no cause of immediate alarm in job market though economy is muted

In wake of the ongoing slowdown, global staffing agency Randstad is looking at maintaining its estimate of net addition of employees across sectors in India at 10,000-12,000, a 67 per cent growth last year.

However, it feels that although the economy is currently muted, there is no cause of an immediate alarm in the job market currently.

The company's Indian entity, Randstad India, has around 56,000 contractual employees who work for its clients across different sectors like IT & ITeS, BFSI, retail, infrastructure and others.

“In the past six months, we have hired around 5,000 employees and hope that this year, the total hiring will be at least 10,000. In the last year, the net addition was 10,000 as well. We started the year very bullish, considering government data on GDP and World Bank predictions on India, but clearly, there has been a slowdown,” Paul Dupuis, managing director and CEO at Randstad India told Business Standard.

On a more positive note, Dupuis said, “We have a few big clients who have asked for very big numbers and I’m yet to meet a company in India that is not hiring.” 

The major sectors that are seeing demand for white-collar jobs despite the economic condition are infrastructure, retail, FMCG and others.

The company contested the claim that unemployment is at a 45-year high, stating that its own data reflects an unemployment rate of 7.5 per cent. Proportionate population growth, changing demographics and the change of balance between the formal and informal economy have to be factored in before coming up with a conclusion based solely on data, it said.

Randstad entered India in 2007 with the acquisition of Ma Foi, and currently, the country accounts for about 10 per cent of its total workforce.

“We grew by 22 per cent last year in India. India is the fastest-growing market for us, followed by Japan and Singapore in the Asia-Pacific region,” Frank Ribuot, CEO of Australia, New Zealand, South-East Asia and India at Randstad NV told this newspaper.

However, in terms of revenue, India accounts for Euro 450 million out of Randstad’s total global earning of Euro 28 billion.

Between January and October this year, Randstad had registered a 19 per cent growth in India.

Ribuot said the job market in Europe is muted, except in France; in the UK, owing to Brexit, the growth rate has come down to one per cent from the previous growth of 5-6 per cent.

Infra, Retail and FMCG key sectors where demand for hiring is still strong