Big city executives stressed, others not: ASSOCHAM

Shortly after its scary job loss prediction linked to the global meltdown, apex industry body Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry in India (ASSOCHAM) today said the crisis was putting senior and middle level executives in major cities under a lot of stress.

The chamber, which had only last month released findings about majority of CEOs suffering from restlessness due to the global turmoil, said a new survey showed that corporate executives in big cities suffered duress, while those in not-so-big cities were relatively relaxed.

ASSOCHAM, however, did not reveal the parameters that helped it come to the conclusion, although it said the sample size was over 2,000 executives from marketing, sales and engineering streams.

Just about a month back, ASSOCHAM had said in a statement: "The financial crisis, which is leading to higher input costs and credit access virtually getting out of hands of large corporates, have brought 68 per cent of CEOs complete restlessness in fulfilling their commitments."

Even last year, when there was no global financial issues, the chamber concluded that chief executive officers (CEO) were facing stress.

"Indian CEOs managing business with a turnover exceeding Rs 1,000 crore were unable to beat stress," the chamber had said then.

In its latest survey marrying the meltdown with stress, it said that senior and middle level executives working in Delhi, Mumbai, Banglaore, Pune and Chennai endure the highest levels of stress and mental fatigue.

However, those in smaller cities like Hyderabad, Goa, Jaipur, Kanpur, Dehra Dun and Nagpur are not stressed as they are not ambitious compared to their counterparts in big metro cities.