Headhunters believe hiring trend to pick up post elections

Good monsoons, higher exports and increased demand from rural sector are also expected to help the cause, say experts

The hiring trend in the country, which is seeing challenging times during this year, is likely to pick up from mid next year after the general elections, according to experts.

"It is a cycle and with management changes in certain cases it would take some time for the impact to be seen. We anticipate that hiring trends will register an uptick in activity from quarter two of next year, when new government comes to power," recruitment consultancy Michael Page India's Director Nilay Khandelwal told PTI here.

He further said this trend was mostly seen following the half-yearly results in many of the multinationals.

   

"The quarter three recruitment trends are generally high but this time we saw a decline in the number of jobs vis-a-vis Q3 2012," he explained.
 
There is no specific industry that has resorted to layoffs, however, there are challenging environments within investment banking, business services, construction, real estate and the IT software sector, Khandelwal said.
     
He said layoffs have mostly been at the junior-to-mid level, and have been a part of either global restructuring or are an India focused initiative.

Citing a similar opinion, Talentsprint CEO and Managing Director Santanu Paul said there is hardly a sector that has not been affected by either hiring freezes or layoffs.

    
 "Bellwether sectors like IT and ITES have at best maintained or lowered their total head count. Financial services sectors like investment banking, capital markets and insurance have actually shrunk. Infrastructure, real estate and construction have visibly slowed, as have e-commerce and internet businesses.

"However, retail, hospitality, education and healthcare sectors are likely to have maintained a certain level of ongoing recruitment," he said.
With the US economy recovering in a substantial way, things should start to look up for all export sectors.
    
 "If India navigates its macroeconomic challenges such as CAD and inflation well, we should start to see an improvement in all domestic sectors in a matter of 6-12 months," he said.

     
Executive search firm GlobalHunt Managing Director Sunil Goel opined that the current trend is a temporary one and will continue for next one year after which situation is expected to improve as market potential is high in the country.
     
The automobile sector, he said, got specifically hit due to factors like slow growth of the economy, buying power of consumers, subdued marketing. "Due to risk faced in employment scenario, consumers are also playing cautious in their spending," Goel added.


Randstad India CEO Moorthy K Uppaluri said in the last 8-10 months, the total loss of jobs due to subdued economic growth in organised sector itself is estimated to around 2,00,000, leading to a rise in unemployment.

However, he feels that the worst is over and business will pick up in the months ahead.
    
"We believe that the worst is over and business will pick up in the months ahead. Already, there are signs of turn-around with few companies reporting good revenues and sales for the last quarter.
     
"We are optimistic the growth focused policy reforms from the government and RBI will put these sectors back onto high growth trajectory," he said.

Moreover, the good monsoons, higher exports and increased demand from rural sector are also expected to help these sectors in their recovery, Uppaluri pointed out.