JLL India revenue grows 17% in FY19; to hire 2,000 employees by 2020-end

Property consultant JLL India's revenue rose 17 per cent to Rs 4,000 crore in 2018-19 despite slowdown in the real estate market and it plans to hire 2,000 employees by the end of the next year to sustain this growth momentum.

JLL India, which is part of global real estate consultant JLL, had posted a revenue of Rs 3,420 crore during the financial year 2017-18. It currently has a workforce of 11,500 people across its offices in over 10 major cities.

Ramesh Nair, chief executive officer and country head of JLL India, said its revenue growth was fuelled by rising demand for Indian commercial real estate, especially office space, from investors as well as end-users.

"The commercial real estate sector's steady growth is reflected in the consistent rise in our revenue," Nair told PTI.

He highlighted that all businesses, such as brokerage services (commercial and residential), transactions, integrated facilities management and property/ asset management, performed well.

"Our huge client base in the region continues to add to this growth. With JLL being a client-centric company, we expect to register growth in future too," Nair said.

On hiring plans, he said JLL India has the largest workforce in the Asia-Pacific region at around 11,500 employees and it aims to scale up further depending on the specific needs of businesses.

"We are currently hiring for 800 openings. The total head count is likely to reach 12,000 by the end of this year and 13,000-13,500 by the end of 2020," Nair said, adding that the attrition rate in the company was also lower than the competitors.

Elaborating more, Nair said JLL India would add workforce in a big way to support its brokerage business in the residential segment, which has started reviving especially in affordable category.

"India is also a critical country for JLL global. We have three global centre of expertise based here in areas of technology and data management. We will scale these business verticals as well," Nair said.

Asked about current market situation, the CEO of JLL India said the residential segment is gradually gaining strength in terms of sales and deliveries, while the commercial segment is already on a growth path.

"Various reforms such as RERA, Amendment of Benami Transactions Act and subsequent implementation of GST have helped in infusing trust and credibility among the homebuyers towards the sector," Nair said.

On office market, he said there is a huge demand for ready and quality offices, being reflected in robust leasing transactions.

The retail segment also will continue to grow driven by youth population with high disposable incomes.

JLL is a Fortune 500 company with annual revenue of USD 16.3 billion, operations in over 80 countries and a global workforce of over 91,000 as of March 31, 2019.