Monster.com to launch employment index on monthly basis

Job portal Monster.com will launch its ‘Monster Employment Index’ in India in the first half of calendar 2010. The employment index — a monthly analysis of India’s online job demand — is expected to capture top industries that are hiring, online hiring activity, region-wise hiring activity, local hiring activity as well as most-wanted occupational experiences.

At present, Monster.com reviews job activities in the US and Europe and its index is based on a real-time review of employer job opportunities culled from a large, representative selection of corporate career sites and job boards.

“This (proposed) job index requires data collection for a minimum period of one year and we have been working on it for the last six-seven months. After India, we plan to take it to China and West Asia in the October-December quarter of this calendar year,” Monster India MD (South-East Asia and West Asia) Sanjay Modi said.

The company is also considering a global job index that will take into account the hot sectors and cities across the world that are hiring. It is also looking at new technology platforms like mobiles that can be integrated with the internet and help employers connect with job seekers.

The company is talking to both mobile handset manufacturers and five major telecom players for this and plans to launch the service in the first half of this year on a pan-India scale. The service will help job seekers register on the job site even without GPRS connectivity.

“With around 70 per cent of mobile phones in India being normal phones, we feel this service will especially benefit rural India, which is where we plan to launch it first,” added Modi.

Last year, portal collaborated with direct-to-home company Dish TV to offer an interactive job search service called ‘MonsterJobs Active’ for Dish TV subscribers, allowing them to search for jobs across the country.