No. Of expats working in India declines; hiring falls 11 pc

The number of expats working in India declined by more than one-fourth to 30,000 in the first nine months of this year and hiring of such individuals is also on the decline, says a report.
According to a survey conducted by recruitment platform MyHiringClub.Com, hiring expatriates is not much of an attraction for employers currently with the recruitment activities for these professionals dropping by 11 per cent during January-September 2014 compared to preceding year.
The survey of over 2,000 employers found that a majority (63 per cent) presently preferred to hire candidates having domestic exposure as against 37 per cent who would employ expat candidates due to their international experiences.

Further, MyHiringClub.Com findings showed that the number of expats working in the country has plunged to about 30,000 in September from 39,000 at the beginning of 2014.
MyHiringClub.Com CEO Rajesh Kumar attributed the fall in recruitment activity to "social and cultural problems with expat candidates, higher cost of hiring and availability of the same skills in Indian candidates".
Almost 70 per cent expats were being hired for higher level positions in the firms while the rest were taken for middle or lower level.

"What is most interesting to notice in India is that most of Indian employers are not preferring to hire expat candidates," Kumar said.

According to Kumar, hiring of expat professionals in the country has been declining continuously post-2012, while it was increasing at the rate of 10-12 per cent before that.
"This decline will expect to continue for next few more years," Kumar said.
Sector-wise, the highest drop in number of expat professionals has been witnessed in retail (-15 per cent) followed by telecom (-12 per cent), FMCG/FMCD (-10 per cent) and Pharmaceuticals (-8 per cent) and IT/ITeS (-7 per cent) during January-September 2014 against the year-ago period.
However, count of expats working in the automobile industry surge to 10 per cent for period under review.