Kolkata recovers from Singur hangover

Kolkata tops the list among all Indian cities when it comes to employment outlook index for the April-June quarter this year, showing a rise of 13 points compared to cities like Pune, which shows a dip by 65 points on the index.

The 'Employment Outlook Report:April - June 2009' released by TeamLease Services, a leading staffing solutions company, indicated that the all-India Employment Outlook index had dipped by 10 index points and stood at 24. It had dipped by 30 points in the previous quarter (Jan – Mar 2009). Also the current Business Outlook index has dipped by eight index points and stands at two, while it had dipped by 50 points in the previous quarter.

Kolkata has bounced back after the last quarter, when there was a sharp decline of 41 points on the index compared to the October-December quarter of 2008-09, which saw a dip of 69 index points, on the back of Tata Motors' decision to pull out its Nano project from Singur. While infrastructure and financial services are the worst hit sectors with negative growth, retail, media and FMCG were the highest contributors towards the sector growth in the city.

In the outlook for April-June 2009, the city shows an increase of three points in the Net Business Outlook compared to the previous quarter. The health sector shows the highest employment growth and is closely followed by the pharmaceutical and financial services sectors. Kolkata also has the lowest attrition rate of three per cent in the last three months together with Ahmedabad, Hyderabad. Bangalore, had the highest attrition rates compared to other cities. All-India attrition rate was less than 15 per cent for all the sectors during the past three months.

Delhi, Hyderabad and Pune have recorded the maximum decline in employment outlook index for April-June 2009. And among the sectors covered, financial services (with 40 points) has the highest index points followed by telecom (with 39 points).

The report also indicates that while there is a decrease in the intention to hire at all managerial levels, there is a steady increase in the intention to hire across most functions except for production, finance and administration.

"The survey results are bittersweet. Nobody can question the downward trend in growth and expansion plans across sectors like financial services, ITeS, retail, FMCG, manufacturing, engineering, IT. But while we can not say that the bottom is behind us, the outlook is clearly better than last time. The long term view of India becoming a more attractive investment destination stands, but we will need a few more quarters to validate a turn from job destruction to job creation", Surabhi Mathur-Gandhi, general manager, TeamLease Services said.