Hiring outlook weakens on falling Re; bad days ahead: Experts

Situation creates uncertainty amongst companies, adversely impacts their talent management strategies

Hiring outlook has weakened in most of the Asia Pacific region, particularly in India with the rupee falling against most currencies and experts are of the opinion that the worst is yet to come.

The weakening economy, inflationary pressures and falling rupee has had a detrimental impact on the companies' bottom lines, thereby creating uncertainty amongst companies and adversely impacting their talent management strategies.

"While most companies will not consider a reduction in workforce, they will decrease their hiring efforts by growing internal talent. As a result, young job seekers are likely to find themselves in an unconducive employment market," Towers Watson India Talent & Rewards Director Subeer Bakshi said.

Bakshi further added that most indices, research houses and experts believe that the worst is yet to come.

Amidst this tough business environment, companies are adopting a cautious approach to recruitment. According to experts, campus hiring are likely to suffer and companies are now adopting new hiring models based on a mixture of campus hiring, just in time hiring, lateral and global hiring.

In a calender year, the August-November period is generally the the most important phase for the job markets as people change jobs and companies seek new hires. But this time this is not happening.

"Against the current economic backdrop, employees will be more careful about job changes resulting in decreased attrition, with companies working to steady human capital costs and moderate salary increases," Bakshi said.

The slowdown in the hiring space is likely to be across the board, and India Inc on the whole may suffer as input costs invariably rise due to the fall in rupee and as a result decreased hiring activity may be witnessed across all sectors.

According to Prashant Lohia, CEO, Ginesys, the fall in rupee is likely to further dim, the hiring prospects of those companies where input costs are linked to forex fluctuations while for the rest, the effect would not be so immediate.

Commenting on the current economic situation, ISF President K Pandia Rajan said employment in India is standing at very crucial juncture where, while jobs are being created they have been mostly in the informal sector which currently engages 94%  of our workforce.

"It is important to create an environment which offers choice of fair employment, decent wage, social security cover and a means to regularly enhance skills- all of it within the organised workforce," it added.