R&D hiring likely to grow by 20% in 2012

As global companies are shifting their research and development base to India to become cost effective and raising their R&D spend, experts have said that hiring in the segment will grow by up to 20 per cent over last year.

“Total global spending on R&D is anticipated to increase 3.6 per cent. With this, the momentum in the hiring has gone up. With India becoming a destination of choice due to its cost competitiveness, hiring by multinational companies is at an all-time high. There is a talent war for engineers and technical professionals,” Elixir Consulting Executive Director Kanika Vaswani told PTI.

The focus for R&D centres in India has gone up this year and expected to grow between 12 and 13 per cent in 2012, she said.

Auto hubs
The country is an emerging destination for auto R&D and companies such as Renault-Nissan, Maruti Suzuki, Honda have set up their centres from 2011 and this year, this not only gave rise to hiring but also led to attrition in the established R&D companies due to these new entrants, she pointed out. Besides, pharmaceuticals and auto R&D that has been hiring steadily, other segments like defence have recently increased hiring, recruitment has recently seen a spurt and is rapidly growing hiring in the defence sector.

Talking about pay packages, she said, in R&D hiring, pharma and defence are the better-paying sectors.

Echoing the view, Executive Search Firm Symbiosis Management Consultants CEO Vinay Grover said R&D is witnessing large investments not only from MNCs but also from domestic players.

“India, positioned as a land with plenty of talent pool at a low cost, has gained the attention of MNCs. In domestic companies, pharma and automobile have realised that in their ambition to globalise their operations, they have no recourse but to spend on R&D,” he said.

Despite the lull in job opportunities, the hiring in R&D is on an upward trajectory and is expected to increase by 15-20 per cent in 2012, he added. This positive trend in R&D hiring started picking up in 2010 and peaked in 2011, and is expected to continue through 2012, he said.

“The hiring is on at all levels — junior, middle and senior. There are lot of positions available at level of technology manager and program manager that can go to the level of director,” he said adding that IT and health care are among the highest paying sectors.

Planman Consulting Director Deepak Kaistha said organisations in India are realising the value of a strong internal research centre to back them with ideas that could be turned into reality. “Hiring has touched its peak in FY11 and is expected to grow another 20 per cent next year,” he added.

Many organisations are also providing funds to the upcoming PhD students and offer such programmes for employees in collaboration with top-notch institutes to attract talent, he said.

FMCG sectors are showing great potential and plan to hire more R&D techies next year, he said adding that Japanese firms aim to work closely with Indian Universities and collaborate with companies to make hiring a smoother process.

When it comes to salaries, he said, IT and FMCG sectors offer the highest packages and R&D hiring is mainly happening at a higher grade levels.

Executive search firm GlobalHunt director Sunil Goel said that for the last few years, there has been lot of focus on real R&D and companies are trying to innovate world class product and technologies.

He, however, said that market conditions may not be that great in 2012 and hiring in the sector will remain steady.