'Amendment to Immigration Act can regulate HR services'

An amendment to the Immigration Act and setting up the proposed Manpower Export Promotion Council would scale up the number of employment of Indians in foreign countries to one million per year from the present 4.5 lakh, according to K Pandia Rajan, managing director, Ma Foi Management Consultants Ltd.

Addressing a press conference organised to announce the Executive Recruiters Association (ERA)'s annual national conference to be held in Chennai on July 7, he said the amendment of the Immigration Act, which envisaged the setting up of a Manpower Export Promotion Council, had been pending for long before the parliament.

He added that the amendment of the act would help regulate recruitment services in the country and the council would help build a brand for Indian manpower. "At present, between 4.2 lakh and 4.5 lakh Indians are employed in foreign countries in a year. I believe we can do a million overseas placements a year once the manpower councils is in place," he added.

The topics that will be discussed at ERA's annual conference will include Immigration Act, labour laws and micro aspects of recruitments.

Saundarya Rajesh, chief executive officer, Avtar Career Creators, said that ERA was adopting a code of ethics and devised a set of professional guidelines for recruiters.

Also, it would soon come out with a diploma course on recruitments, intended to train people on the tools and methods for effective recruitments.

Stating that the association would work on expanding the talent pool to tackle attrition issues, she said that ERA was planning interim job opportunities for women.

Virendar P Mathur, chief executive officer, Future Focus Infotech Pvt Ltd, said ERA had over 100 recruitment firms across the country as members. The association was working on creating a differentiation between poaching and head hunting.

The combined annual turnover of all ERA members was in excess of Rs 1000 crore and ERA members employ over 125,000 people (including temp staff). Recruiters collecting fees from the job-seekers would not be eligible for a membership in ERA, he added.

The size of the recruitment industry in the country is estimated at about Rs 2,000 crore, of which flexi staffing segment is expected to account for about Rs 1,600 crore.