JOB WORLD NEWS

3 Indian IT giants hire 20,000 employees in Q4

2010-04-25T00:58:00.000-07:00

IT giants Infosys, TCS and Wipro hired over 20,000 employees in the January-March quarter, with improving business conditions propelling their recruitment plans.

According to human resources experts, IT and IT-enabled services are expected to see a huge jump in hiring this year and major companies in the sector have already set the pace.

The three IT companies put together have made net additions of 20,014 employees (taking into account attrition) in the January-March quarter.

IT giant Infosys hired as many as 9,313 employees in the quarter, but the net addition after taking into account attrition was 3,914, according to the company's financial statement for the period.

The hiring increased the total workforce of the company and its subsidiaries to 1,13,796 employees at the end of March this year.

Another IT major Tata Consultancy Services took on board a net 10,775 employees in the last quarter of 2009-10 fiscal. TCS' total employee strength has soared to 1,60,429 at the end of the last fiscal.

The hiring momentum picked up from the third quarter of the last fiscal, when TCS had made 7,692 net additions, compared with just 320 recruitments in the previous quarter.

Besides, Wipro made net additions of 5,325 employees in the Q4 FY10, taking its total strength to 1,08,071.

According to a recent survey by staffing firm TeamLease, Indian companies are increasingly upbeat about their hiring plans across almost all sectors in April-June period this year, led by an improving business outlook.

HR experts predict companies in the IT & ITes sector would hire 1,50,000 professionals in the fiscal year 2011.

Aricent to hire 1,000 people for new software line in India

2010-04-25T00:54:00.000-07:00

Telecom software company Aricent plans to hire 3,000 people globally during the current fiscal out of which it will hire 1,000 people over the next four months in India to develop new products to cater to the increasing demands from customers.

"With recovery in the economy, the company is seeing strong demand from telecom operators to create the next generation of telecom products and services. To meet this, we need to ramp up our product line," assistant Vice-President, Talent Acquisition, Aricent Inderjit Sen said.

Out of the 1,000, almost 300 people would be based in the company's Chennai centre, he said adding they would be doing high-end software solution for telecom clients.

Aricent is owned by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., Sequoia Capital, The Family Office, and Flextronics Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board.

Last fiscal, Aricent had hired 3,000 people globally across its several centres.

The company said its customer list of 550 globally include Bharti Airtel, Cisco, Panasonica, Samsung, LG and Telefonica. Aricent has become a strategic supplier to the world's leading communications equipment manufacturers and service providers.

Aricent's products and services span the entire communications ecosystem including user experience design, consulting, research and development, testing and integration for devices and infrastructure, as well as operational and billing systems.

How to ask for a salary hike?

2010-03-02T21:40:00.000-08:00

How to ask for a salary hike

Despite putting in a number of years at an organisation and holding on to your job when others quit, you have been passed over for promotion.

Should you ask for a bigger role and a raise? What’s the best way to go about it?

Most of us try to avoid asking for a promotion or raise. But it is worth mustering the courage, as the rewards are worth it.

But before you present your case, here are a few questions you ought to ask yourself:
Does your performance speak for itself?

If the answer is yes, you have a chance. Present all your achievements since you started working in the organisation. Showcase how these achievements are noteworthy and need recognition in the form of a promotion and raise.

The best time to ask for one is immediately after a recent major achievement, where you have displayed exemplary behaviour (cost cutting, clinching a major account, process improvement or improved productivity).

But remember that your past performance, ability to perform under pressure and meet tight deadlines also enhances your chances for a promotion.

Are you ready to take on additional responsibilities?

Promotion means additional responsibilities not only towards your job, but towards organisation building too.

The expectation levels will also increase the moment you move to the next level. What was exceptional performance in the last role would be considered average in the new role.

As you move ahead in your career, remember that there is no scope for complacency.

Is there a position that you can fill in?
Companies do not offer promotions merely to satisfy employees. There must be a vacancy available. Organisations do not create positions to fulfill your desires.

Even if they do so, within a couple of months you will realise that you are still stuck doing the same old routine tasks.

However, if you have been creating value additions, been efficient and well informed, there is a possibility of you being given an opportunity to do something different, where you create something from scratch, perhaps even a new department.

This is your true test of performance, potential and perseverance.

How to raise the topic?

Be very sure of what you want, why you want it and what makes you fit for the role. Do not show dissatisfaction at your current state of affairs.

Present a positive picture by mentioning that you wish to contribute more towards the organisation’s growth. Presentation with valid, relevant data would make your boss realise your potential.

Perceived potential for growth matters a lot. Keep statistics handy during the discussion; showcase your contribution and achievements.
Not getting the deserved raise

You have worked hard and feel the raise you have got does not match your investment in the firm. Will the threat to quit, work? This is common in many organisations.

But, it’s unethical and has a very slim chance of working. Do not lose hope, keep performing and adding value, and always remember to showcase your achievements. Do not stop enhancing and upgrading your knowledge and skills. It will come in handy during the next discussion (or in a new job).

Remember; do not hound your boss with constant reminders. It would be a good idea to track your performance through objective performance management, setting goals and tracking achievements will give you the benefit. It is not said without reason, tough times never last, tough people do.

How to turn downtime into job offers

2010-01-06T23:53:00.000-08:00

If there is one thing that most unemployed job seekers have in abundance, it is time. And yet many of them misuse it.

This is understandable. Someone who has just lost a job may be accustomed to a workplace with its schedules and deadlines, and its expectant bosses and co-workers. If you fail to finish an important assignment, you’ll hear about it.

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Compare that with post-layoff life. You can assign yourself tasks, but no one will come after you if you don’t finish them. When you get up in the morning, it can seem as if a long clean carpet of time is ahead of you, but then you may decide to go to the gym, have a leisurely lunch, take a nap, check out "Roadies" on TV & "Big Switch," and then you’re ready to make dinner.

Or you may engage in a whirlwind of sending e-mail messages, Orkuting, Googling, calling and appointment-making, only to realize that very little of it got you closer to finding a job.

"Having no structure is the biggest enemy to being organized and being focused," said Julie Morgenstern, a productivity consultant in New York and author of "Time Management From the Inside Out."

Job seekers should create specific work hours and a time map along with minideadlines. Like many other experts, she recommends treating job hunting like a full-time job.

Looking for a job involves so many steps that trying to define and prioritize them can be overwhelming, said Kimberly Bishop, chief executive of a career management and leadership services firm in New York.

"I don’t think that there’s ever a time that the job search process is easy," Bishop said. Because it is not something people tend to do on a regular basis, few people are truly skilled at it, , but "being prepared and having a plan and a process brings confidence."

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To begin, Bishop said, set aside a physical space for job hunting and devote from several days to a week solely on laying the groundwork for your search, .

Too often, Bishop said, people fling themselves into making appointments and arranging interviews before they even have their resumes updated or know what kind of jobs they should realistically seek.

Prepare resumes, write sample cover letters, assemble your references, and put together samples of your work, . Compile an inventory of your skills, accomplishments and honors – Bishop calls this a "success folder" – ready to be shown or recounted during interviews.

"Once the job hunt gets started, it’s so easy to become overwhelmed with just the management and organization of the paperwork," Bishop said. So create files, either paper or computer ones, to keep track of where you have applied and where you have had interviewed, .

You don’t want to have a recruiter or a human resources manager call you and find yourself saying: "Who did you say you were again? You say I applied there?"

After this initial preparation it’s time to get started in earnest. Morgenstern suggests dividing the day into three compartments: preparation and research, meetings, and follow-up. "Mixing it up" this way can stop you from obsessing about things and from being paralyzed by perfectionism, . It is energizing and keeps you balanced, she added.

Bishop echoed this sentiment, saying it is dangerous to spend too much time on any one thing. Some people spend all their time in front of the computer sending unproductive e-mail messages and applying for jobs for which they aren’t qualified, (and that wastes the hiring manager’s time, too). Other people spend all day at networking meetings and informational interviews without doing the concrete work that leads to an actual application or an interview, .

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Of course be flexible (don’t turn down a job interview to do research!), but Morgenstern put forth this sample day of varied activities: From 9 to 11, do background research on companies that you will be applying to or interviewing with. Research unconventional industries that may fit with your skills. Take an online career assessment test. Generate a list of contacts for networking purposes. Look up networking organisations.

Try to schedule a meeting every day, or five meetings a week, . "These benchmarks keep you from becoming complacent or depressed" and keep you connected with the outside world, . Between 11 and 2 or 3, you might meet with a friend or former colleagues or a career counselor for lunch or coffee.

Then go home and do follow-up work, . Send a thank-you e-mail message to the person you had lunch or coffee with and forward any articles or leads that you may have mentioned. Send your thank-you notes that day, . Do not put that off.

End every day by planning the next one, plus the two days after that, . This "three-day arc" puts your job search in context and enables you to pace yourself, .

"People are energised by getting things done,". "Energy then begets more energy and more productivity." That begets confidence.

Then, when you’re calling people on the phone or meeting with them, you radiate confidence and increase your chances of being hired, .

Domestic market to drive hiring in 2010

2010-01-06T23:29:00.000-08:00

The domestic market is expected to spearhead hiring activities in 2010, unlike in recent years when recruitment was led by outsourcing requirements. With domestic companies getting their act together to cash in on the "recovering market" opportunities , there is already a significant amount of buoyancy reported in hiring.

Bhanushree R, director in TMG Talent Management Group, says there was a 50% increase in recruitment billing revenues during the October-December quarter. ‘‘ January has already shown a 20% increase on this. It is clearly an indication of the kind of job numbers that are going to come during the first calendar quarter itself and beyond. Desi companies are also busy inducting talent to strengthen their management,'' she says.

Some other recruiters too report an over 50% upturn in hiring during the last one month. Staffing firm TeamLease reports a quantum increase in the number of active positions at around 4,000 currently, as against just 800 positions around June last year. It had over 10,000 active job positions prior to the Lehman collapse in 2008.

Ashok Reddy, managing director, Team-Lease Staffing Solutions, says unlike in the past, the current hiring is not driven by outsourcing or global markets. ‘‘ It's the domestic market that is responsible for the current spurt in hiring. It is going to be a sustained, well-rounded growth. Recruitment volumes will pick up across verticals like telecom, manufacturing , FMCG, retail, BFSI, IT and government ,'' he says. Traditionally, about 85% of hiring by IT companies is to meet outsourcing demand, but now, domestic demand is playing a significant role.

A lot of senior sales and customer-facing positions are getting filled. IT infrastructure, storage and security are the hot domains in the technology space.

10 New Year's resolutions for job seekers

2009-12-31T23:33:00.000-08:00

Job seekers often encounter three major roadblocks to success: poor marketing, poor networking, and poor mind-set. Now, an expert has offered 10 New Year's Resolutions aimed at overcoming those obstacles.

Andy Chan, vice president for career development at Wake Forest University, said that adopting these 10 resolutions could help refresh and rejuvenate the job search, and get the New Year off to the best start possible.

Roadblock 1 - Poor marketing

"Many people don’t realise that the way they are marketing themselves just isn’t working, and they never get any feedback. The best way to get feedback is to ask for it from people who do a lot of hiring," said Chan.

1. I will ask friends or acquaintances who manage and hire people to evaluate my cover letter and resume and give me real feedback - even if it hurts to hear it.

2. I will ask these same friends to conduct a practice interview with me and give me "tough love" feedback.

3. When I find an attractive job on the Web, I will apply immediately (with a tailored cover letter and resume) and search for friends and colleagues who could act as referrals to help me network into the organization.

Roadblock 2 - Poor networking

"We make the assumption that if we apply on the Web, it will get us in the door. But the truth is, if your experience doesn’t line up perfectly with the job, the likelihood of getting seen is low. That’s why networking is important. People hire people; they don’t hire paper," Chan said.

4. I will be thoughtful about when to send my resume, and I will not send my resume to everyone I know.

5. I will be specific about the type of work and organizations, including names of target organizations that I find most interesting.

6. I will network 80 per cent of the time and use the Web 20 per cent of the time.

Roadblock 3 - Poor mind-set

"A lot of people are looking at jobs through a narrow lens. But as the old Rolling Stones song says, ‘you can’t always get what you want.’ You may need to focus first on what you need and get the ideal job later," Chan said.

7. I will be open to exploring many options because an interesting opportunity may exist beyond what I can see on the surface.

8. I will re-examine what my real financial needs are so that I can be more open to opportunities that may pay me less than what I want.

9. I will evaluate opportunities by recognizing that this job can be a stepping stone to another job (inside or outside the company) - especially as the market improves.

10. Although I might want to quit and do a job search full-time, I am more attractive to employers when I am employed.

IDBI Fortis to double headcount

2009-11-26T03:47:00.000-08:00

IDBI Fortis Life Insurance Company is planning to double its employee strength to fuel its expansion plan by 2010. IDBI Fortis national
head-marketing and product development Amish Tripathi told ET that the company is plans to add new branches to expand its business horizon.

“Currently, we have 35 branches with 1,000 on-roll employees and 7,500 agents across the country. We plan to open 65 more offices doubling our employee strength,” he said.

IDBI Fortis Life Insurance Company is a 48:26:26 joint venture between IDBI Bank, the Federal Bank and the Belgian insurance group Fortis. Mr Tripathi said the company would leverage on the extensive branch network of IDBI and the Federal Bank in the country for deeper penetration.

“There are around 1,300 branches of IDBI and the Federal Bank in the country with more than 10 million customers. We want to tap the business potential existing with the bank customers. Currently, 60% of our premium income comes from the bank tie-up route,” he said.

Mr Tripathi said the company has clocked a 27% growth in the first year premium and a 74% growth in gross premium as on September this fiscal with a premium business worth Rs 318 crore.

“At the present growth rate, we expect to break even in our seventh year of operation,” he said.

IDBI Fortis launched its operations in March 2008 with an initial capital of Rs 200 crore. Later, it infused Rs 250 crore more this year to boost its expansion plan. “Our capital base is adequate to carry on with our expansion drive,” he said.

Global aviation cos' India hub plans may create 6 lakh jobs over 10 years

2009-11-26T03:44:00.000-08:00

BANGALORE: As top aviation companies such as Boeing and Airbus intensify efforts to leverage India as their maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO)
hub, experts say it will create around 600,000 new jobsfor skilled professionals in the country over next 10 years.

Plane servicing costs in India are $30-35 per man-hour in India, almost half of around $60 in other locations, attracting more companies to expand and establish their MRO centres in the country.

Boeing, Airbus, Malaysian Airlines, Lufthansa Technik, SR Technics, Singapore Airlines and Timco are among companies, which have either set up an MRO of their own, or are in the process of identifying a local partner for the same.

“With the current fleet size expected to reach 612 planes by 2015 from around 391 currently, these MROs would create 600,000 jobs within the next 10 years,” said Chethan Kambi senior research analyst for aerospace and defence practice at Frost and Sullivan.

Bombardier, Embraer, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon are also exploring MRO opportunities in the country. The Indian commercial aviation MRO alone is expected to reach $1.06 billion by 2015, and the maintenance cycle and MRO service requirements in India are expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.5% between 2009 and 2015, according to Frost.

In order to address this lucrative opportunity, many local Indian companies are forming joint ventures. For instance, GMR Hyderabad International Airport (GHIAL), and MAS Aerospace Engineering (MAE), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Malaysia Airlines, have set up a 50:50 joint venture airframe MRO company in Hyderabad.

“The initial investment in this project would be more than $50 million,” said D Ravindran, COO, aviation and aerospace business at GHIAL. “To start with, the airframe MRO would create nearly 200-250 jobs from the date of operations of the facility. This would gradually ramp-up to anywhere between 500-600 jobs,” he added. State governments are also gearing up for the MRO opportunities by establishing dedicated zones.

“A 1,000-acre for MRO and aerospace ‘park’ will be developed near the international airport at Devanahalli,” said KS Shivaswamy, managing director of the industries facilitation cell, Karnataka Udyog Mitra. People familiar with investments in Karnataka added that Jupiter Aviation and HAL have already acquired land for MRO purpose.

“We will start building $100-million MRO centre in Nagpur next year,” said Boeing India president Dinesh Keskar. Rival EADS, which owns Airbus, is also planning to set up its MRO in Delhi by investing around $40 million. Air Works India Engineering is also planning to invest $120 million in MRO in next three years.

“The MRO demand is not only for commercial airlines, but also for executive aviation,” said Jose Eduardo Costas, vice-president for executive jets at Brazilian planemaker Embraer. Asia’s 800 business jets, or 12% of the total world population of business jets, will double in 10 years with a growth rate of 9%.

“India and China will respond two-thirds of this and so there will be an increasing need for many MROs,” said Mr Costas. To support the operations of the growing number of its Phenom business jets and legacy 600 customers in the country, the world’s fourth-largest airplane maker appointed Indamer Company as an authorised service center.

However, despite an exponential growth projected for MRO business in India, the country has still not sorted out certification issues related to training of the required workforce.

The certification, given by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), is not yet comparable with mandatory European standards. DGCA is now in the process of making its certification equivalent to European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), which is mandatory for MROs to serve the international airlines.

Indian IT firms back to their hiring ways

2009-11-26T03:42:00.000-08:00

Indian IT service firms are looking to throw open their gates yet again to prospective employees as the gloom of the global recession
lifts from the $60 billion industry and demand for outsourcing services improves.

This is in stark contrast to the scenario a few months back when most of them had frozen salaries, promotions and, in some cases, saw their first ever declines in quarterly headcount additions. The sector, which employs more than 2 million people, has been one of the biggest job creators in Asia's third-largest economy and used to hire people by thousands every quarter, mostly engineering graduates.

India's top two IT service firms Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys, each of which employ more than 100,000, used to shower employees with hefty pay hikes and perks not too long ago to keep their staff from being poached by bigger rivals such as IBM and Accenture.

"There is some confidence back in the system," V. Balakrishnan, CFO of Infosys Technologies said at the Reuters India Investment Summit in Bangalore. "Most of the corporates are feeling much better about the economy now than they were some six to eight months back."

Infosys, India's second-largest software services exporter, last month raised its hiring target to 20,000 for the fiscal year that ends in March, up from its earlier forecast of 18,000, and Balakrishnan said it wanted to be well-oiled when growth returns.

Infosys, which had earlier put a hold on salary hikes and promotions for this fiscal year, said it would raise pay by an average of 8 percent this year for its employees in India. "In the beginning of the year, the environment was so challenging that we said we won't give any wage increase for the year, and we also stopped all promotions. We had some buffer on the margins so we gave the wage increase," Infosys' Balakrishnan said.

Wipro Ltd, India's No 3 software services firm, also said the IT industry was back to being bullish about its hiring outlook. "The recovery is still taking place. It's still very slow. But I think customers have decided to move on and make things happen," Wipro's joint CEO of IT business Suresh Vaswani said. Wipro's CFO of IT business Manish Dugar said there would be headcount growth going forward.

"But I don't know if we'll have proportionate increase in headcount to the revenue." Wipro also said it will announce a decision on wage increases during the course of this quarter. Mahindra Satyam, earlier known as Satyam Computer Services that was rocked by India's biggest corporate fraud, is also looking to hire people and reinstating various employee benefits.

The company currently has a "virtual pool" of about 5,000 employees, who are not actively involved on any outsourcing project and are on reduced salaries. On Monday, Tata Consultancy Services, India's top outsourcing company, had said the company was likely to increase wages in the next fiscal year.

The change of sentiment in the Indian IT sector gives millions of Indians, directly or indirectly employed by the sector, a cause to cheer. However, industry observers caution that the sector is not yet out of the woods, and it may take some time before hiring and pay scales reach pre-recession level.

"I don't think the hiring and pay scale in the sector will reach pre-recession levels any time soon," Tejas Doshi, head of research at Sushil Finance, said from Mumbai. "We used to see companies hiring 15 percent to 20 percent of their employee base on an incremental basis. I don't think we'll see companies hiring 20 percent of their employee base in a year anytime soon. I think those days are gone," Doshi added.

Wipro's Dugar said any pay increases the company announces won't be in line with the heady days of the past. Infosys' Balakrishnan said the 8 percent wage hike the company has given is as good as the 16 percent given during the good times, especially when some of its peers are still holding on to their purses.

"Wage increase is a function of how the environment is. When the environment gets better and people start hiring more the wage pressure may come back," he said. Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry believes that it would take another one or two years for hiring to be at pre-recession levels.

"I don't think it's going to happen in 2010 at all, probably it could happen in 2011," Chowdhry said. Mahindra Satyam's president of global operations, Atul Kunwar, believes that it will take at least two years for IT budgets of customers to go back to pre-recession levels.

Companies step up background checks of prospective employees

2009-11-26T03:34:00.000-08:00

As the economy rebounds and hiring begins to pick up pace, companies are going to unprecedented lengths with sweeping background
checks of prospective employees. The scope of pre-employment screening, which has been traditionally limited mainly to senior executives and involved basic searches to verify the accuracy of the resume, the educational background and biographical data, is now getting vastly expanded. All job applicants, not just those at senior levels, are being scrutinised with a fine toothcomb. And almost no area is off limits.

While false claims about education and employment are among the main triggers for rejection, some job applicants have been tripped up by their personal lives. One such was denied a job after an agency specialising in background verification discovered that the individual was having an extra-marital affair. The agency asked the prospective employer, a multinational company, to put the application on hold by filing a ‘pink’ report and the employer obliged.

“In our lingo, green means a go-ahead, pink is doubtful and red signifies rejection,” said SK Sharma, group director-HR at PremierShield, a security solutions company that carries out background checks on behalf of corporates. A red flag can be activated by a number of other factors: criminal history, substance abuse, a poor credit track record or even dodgy equity trading. While former colleagues, classmates and those living in the applicant’s neighbourhood are tapped for information, some agencies go even further.

PremierShield admits to setting up sting operations to test for ethics and some companies infiltrate staff into the organisation where the applicant is working to gather information about the prospective employee’s conduct with colleagues, especially women.

Arun Bhagat, vice-president, HR, with infrastructure group GMR said he visits colleges and universities and at least two past employers to do reference checks of candidates. It recently sacked an employee just days after he joined after it was discovered that he had falsified some documents. “For key roles in finance and at executive levels, we make discreet enquiries on the reliability of the professional, his reputation in and outside the organisation and even carry out a search on the internet,” he said.

Mr Bhagat insists that the checks are carried out with the consent of the prospective employee. Software and back-office service providers were among the first to make background checks mandatory for all potential hires. Many IT companies and HR consultants like Ma Foi engage firms such as First Advantage, PP Verify, PremierShield, Onicra, Authbridge for pre-employment screening, which can cost between Rs 1,000 and Rs 5,000 per employee.

Pinkerton Consulting & Investigations India, a detective agency, which undertakes screening for several multinational firms, found in a recent survey for IT and IT-enabled Services providers that about 4,000 companies, universities and institutes of dubious background were providing fake documents. Pradeep Bahirwani, vice-president (talent acquisition) at Wipro said that in the IT industry the average percentage of fake resumes is 20-30%. “Based on preventive and corrective actions less than 1% of the total active applications we receive would be fake,” he added.

Among other sectors, the financial services industry, which hires an estimated 75,000 employees every year, is now actively adopting the practice started by IT companies. Battling a marked rise in the incidence of fraud by employees — a recent study by risk consultancy Kroll showed that fraud is increasing twice as fast in the financial services sector than in others — companies are snooping on potential hires more than ever before.

This is part of the new belt-tightening system in all high-profile recruitments in the financial sector,” said veteran headhunter, Ajit Isaac, MD
& CEO of Ikya Human Capital Solution.

While nearly all leading banks carry out verification with the police for criminal history, some private banks like Axis Bank have also started checking the credit history of recruits. “Since credit history is closely associated with one’s reputation, reviewing it is becoming a norm before recruitment,” a senior Axis Bank official said.

The country’s largest private sector insurer ICICI Prudential Life concedes that nearly 7% of the candidates it reviewed for hiring had a fraudulent past. The company has now partnered with reputed risk management agencies to undertake background screening.

“As one of the leading players in the insurance space, we are deeply concerned about the incidence of fraud and are working with the industry to explore ways to mitigate the risk of fraudulent activities,” said ICICI Prudential Life HR head Judhajit Das. The insurance sector is now even thinking of creating a common central database that will include the names of all employees fired for fraud. The proposal, put forward by Bajaj Allianz General Insurance, is now being discussed by all leading players.

The Life Insurance Council, the grouping of life insurers, is also keen on the idea. “However, someone has to manage such a database of delinquent employees — it may either be us or the regulator IRDA,” said chairman SB Mathur. With curious employers prying deeper into the backgrounds of potential employees, there are concerns that they could intrude into individuals’ privacy.

E Balaji, CEO of HR firm Ma Foi, observes that in Europe, there are stringent privacy laws and strict regulations and guidelines about how much an employer can check the background of an employee. “In comparison, awareness about privacy laws is much lower (in India). Companies just take a broad declaration from the individual about such background checks,” he said.

It's raining offers on job street, over 5 lakh join in Q2

2009-11-26T03:32:00.000-08:00

Unlike the jobless recovery of the developed world, the Indian economy is creating opportunities as it shrugs off the effects of the
slowdown.

The government data shows that sectors such as textiles, automobiles, and IT/BPO, among others, generated around 5 lakh jobs in the July-September quarter this fiscal.

Meanwhile, the public sector banks are getting ready to spread the cheer as they embark on a large-scale recruitment drive in a bid to replace their estimated 40% of their workforce that retires over the next two years.

Currently, there are about 8 lakh people employed in public banks across the country, as per industry estimates.
With about 3.2 lakh employees set to retire by 2011-12, there will be a large number of positions vacant in these banks.

Although not all the slots will be filled, banks are looking to spruce up hiring at all levels and the number will be significant, said senior executives in the banking industry.

MD Mallya, CMD, Bank of Baroda (BOB), said: “We are looking to add talent for two reasons. One, we need manpower to facilitate our expansion plans and two, there will be quite a few slots vacant with senior employees retiring over the next two years.”

Mr Mallya added that the bank plans to add about 1500-2000 heads in the current fiscal itself.
The country’s largest bank State Bank Of India (SBI) is hiring more than 13,000 people in the current fiscal.

However, hiring may not be in direct proportion to the number retiring. Said Bank of Maharashtra CMD Allen Pereira: “We will hire in sizeable number. But not all the positions that fall vacant will get filled up as some jobs get eliminated as a result of improved technologies over the years.”

The global meltdown that shook the financial sector last year and cause developed world to slump into recession caused serious demand drop for India’s exports sector and large-scale job losses. In April-June 2009 quarter job loses were placed 1.3 lakh.

The strong recovery in jobs in the last quarter has taken the net job additions over the 12 months ending September 2009 to a positive 1.5 lakh, limited survey by the government has revealed.

“The stimulus packages given out by the government helped increase liquidity, thereby stimulating production and consumption. This inturn led to employment generation,” Said Harish Rawat, minister of state, labour and employment told the Rajya Sabha in a written reply.

Added BP Pant, director, labour and skill development at FICCI: “Market sentiments have improved over the past few months. While the country’s exports were hit badly, other sectors were relatively better off.”

IIM-C gets full placement for PGPEX-VLM programme

2009-11-26T03:30:00.000-08:00

KOLKATA: Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (IIM-C) on Wednesday said that the second PGPEX-VLM programme batch was fully placed.

Out of 29 offers, there were two international offers, five offers from consulting firms and the rest was a mixed bag. The firms included, Crompton, McNallyBharat, Cummins, Hewlett-Packard, JSW, VNL, Gurgaon, TVS Motor, PricewaterHouse Coopers, Ashok Leyland, Vedanta, Adani Power, PM Dimension, John Deer Equipment and ACC Ltd.

The highest offer was for Rs 18 lakh per annum and the average was at Rs 11.37 lakh per annum, which is higher than the average Cost To Company (CTC) at the time of admission.

The PGPEX-VLM programme is jointly conducted by IIM-C, IIT-K & IIT-M for manufacturing excellence. The second batch students had an average work experience in the manufacturing sector of around 8 years, the institute said.

World unemployment rising; rates, responses vary

2009-10-05T02:32:00.001-07:00

Unemployment is rising around the world as the recession leaves few corners untouched - but sharp differences remain between companies
directly hit by financial or housing-market collapses and those that have deliberately protected jobs with expensive measures - including subsidizing shorter working weeks.

Unemployment rates in the 30 wealthy countries that belong to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development range from a low of 3.2 per cent in the Netherlands to 17.6 per cent in Spain, according to July figures.

And European Union figures for the 16 countries using the euro show a rate of 9.6 per cent for August.

In the developing world, the downturn has also taken its toll. Unemployment in Brazil appears now to be easing a bit, but Mexico in August posted its highest jobless rate in 13 years. In Africa, the continent's largest economy, South Africa, is in the grips of its first recession in 17 years and about a quarter of the population is officially without work.

The US unemployment rate was 9.8 per cent in September, the highest since June 1983, the Labor Department said Friday. Most economists see US unemployment topping 10 per cent by early next year.

The speed of the increase in unemployment rates also varies, with countries like France starting with relatively high unemployment and shifting only slightly upward, and Britain and Ireland starting low but rising fast.

``There are quite significant differences across countries and regions,'' said John Martin, head of the OECD's employment, labor and social affairs division. ``Quite a number of the countries which so far have not seen major increases in unemployment were countries that either have expanded short-time working schemes or introduced them in the first places.''

But he noted such programs - where workers agree to fewer hours and the government helps make up the difference in their pay - may not be affordable for much longer.

The OECD expects the jobless rate in its 30 members to approach 10 per cent in the second half of next year, meaning 57 million people out of work. If forecasts are correct, about half of those would have joined the jobless lines in the three years from the start of the downturn to the end of 2010.

Stefano Scarpetta, head of employment analysis at the OECD, said that the US is historically quicker at reducing unemployment after a shock than Europe. But still, he said it could take three years or longer for the US to return to pre-crisis levels.

IT to generate 5.8 million new jobs by 2013

2009-10-05T02:27:00.000-07:00

Information technology will be an employment machine, generating 5.8 million new jobs in the coming four years, according to International Data Corporation (IDC) research released on Sunday.

IDC predicts that the IT industry will be an engine powering economies out of economic doldrums, creating more that 75,000 new businesses in the next four years and adding jobs at a rate of 3 percent annually.

"Countries that foster innovation and invest in infrastructure, education and skills development for their citizens will have a major competitive advantage in the global marketplace," said Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer.

"In this fundamental economic reset, innovative technologies will play a vital role in driving productivity gains and enabling the creation of new local businesses and highly skilled jobs that fuel economic recovery and support sustainable economic growth."

US software colossus Microsoft sponsored the IDC research into the impact of IT in 52 countries that represent 98 percent of the global IT spending.

"IT spending growth is a good sign as we come out of the recession," Microsoft Corporate Affairs communications manager Scott Selby told AFP.

Employment growth in IT related jobs will be three times that of overall job growth in what Selby said is a "good driver of economic growth."

While the world has been in the gripes of a recession, it has also been in the midst of a "technology renaissance" flush with advances in software, devices, and Internet-based services, according to IDC.

IDC expects IT spending in the countries studied to grow at slightly more than three percent annually, three times as fast as the gross domestic products between now and the year 2013.

In what is good news for software powerhouse Microsoft, spending on software is predicted to grow faster than overall IT spending, rising 4.8 percent annually.

"Software is a driving force behind this IT growth," Selby said. "IT allows us to do more with less."

New technologies are also ushering in a new "cloud computing" paradigm in which applications are provided online as services instead of as software bought and installed on home or office machines, according to IDC.

Money saved by using software as needed "in the cloud" instead of buying, maintaining, and updating applications will likely be devoted to bringing new products or services to market faster and cheaper, according to Selby.

IDC estimates that cloud services could add 800 billion dollars in net new business revenues between the end of 2009 and the end of 2013.

"Over the past 20 years, we've seen transformative power in how investments in IT innovations foster economic growth," said Robert D. Atkinson, founder of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation in Washington, D.C.

"Continued innovation and investment in information technology will help jump-start recovery from the current recession and will significantly contribute to the growth of employment and new businesses."

Emerging markets will reap the greatest economic gains from IT, according to Selby.

"Emerging markets are really going to take advantage of IT for years to come," Selby said.

"One reason is they will be able to leapfrog and enjoy benefits of innovations like cloud computing much more quickly."

Microsoft played up the prime role its software is playing in IT systems worldwide.

The positive after a layoff

2009-08-18T03:41:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK: After a layoff, your self-esteem and personal relationships may take a hit. Your bank account and quality of life may both spiral downward. You may not even be sure you can pay your mortgage or rent.

And now you’re supposed to go out and convince employers that you’d be a great hire?

Desperation, hopelessness, depression, anger – these are not useful feelings to bring to a job search. Yet after a layoff, it is normal to experience some or all of them.

And the longer joblessness lasts, the greater the emotional toll it can exact. Ford R. Myers, a career coach and president of Career Potential in Philadelphia, says it is taking his clients 20 percent to 25 percent longer, on average, to land a job than it did before the recession.

If desperation could be measured, its level would surely be higher, too. And "if you’re feeling desperate the employer can smell it a mile away," Myers said.

Now, a certain amount of acting more confident than you really feel may be in order at interviews, but there are ways you can genuinely take the edge off your negative emotions.

It’s important to work through the negative feelings you experience because of a layoff, said Nancy Molitor, public education coordinator for the American Psychological Association and a psychologist in private practice in Wilmette, Ill.

Being laid off "is a profound loss," Molitor said. It can lead to feelings of humiliation, embarrassment, sadness, guilt and frustration. And if you are supporting other people financially, a host of other powerful emotions and worries can be released, she said.

Consider, too, that a layoff removes people from the structure and camaraderie of daily working life and can plunge them into unaccustomed isolation – a possible precursor to stress and depression.

Periodically, you may need to "download" all your emotions – to write them down or discuss them with a trusted friend who won’t criticize or judge you, Molitor said. Then identify which things you can control and which you can’t. Throughout your search, make detailed lists of the things you have done and still need to do, she said.

If you keep your emotions bottled up, "you’re going to have stress symptoms later," she said. These can include insomnia, panic attacks, and colds brought on by a weakened immune system, she said. (And these will make you perform all the worse during an interview.)

Mentally, stress can distort your perspective. "When we get stressed, the brain is sometimes ineffective at processing things rationally," Molitor said. In short, things may not be nearly as bad as they appear, and you have more control over your situation than you think.

Get help from your primary care doctor if you have symptoms like insomnia, she said. For anxiety or depression, it may be necessary to see a mental health professional.

If you believe that you have lost your health insurance, check with your former human resources department about your post-layoff benefits. "Don’t assume that you don’t have coverage," Molitor said.

IT thinks out-of-box to beat slump

2009-08-18T03:39:00.000-07:00

NEW DELHI: The prolonged slump in global technology services spending is clearly turning out to be more like a boring five-day test match cricket
than a T20 encounter. While the greenshoots hold out hope for changes in the macro environment, it’s yet to translate into big deals the Indian IT players had just about started getting used to. That was a good 12-18 months back. Since those good old days of 24% growth a year, technology services export growth has dived to 4-7 %.

Despite the setback, the smarter companies haven’t buried their heads in the sand, like the proverbial Ostrich. They are working over time, identifying new niches, new markets, creating new systems to get the bucks in this tough environment and prepare for better times.

Sample the action: Infosys Technologies is strengthening the front end and will hire 150 people in France and Germany as it sees these markets open up. It’s Bangalorebased rival Wipro Technologies is betting on seven new focus areas, which it sees as the big businesses of tomorrow. These include cloud computing, collaboration technologies and social computing. On the other hand, Cognizant has tripled its team of consultants to 1,800 and is betting on new geographies like Japan, Australia and India.

Similarly, the largest services player TCS is increasing more work offshore and strengthening its combined IT-BPO offering . And even a small company like the 5,000 people Mumbai-based Hexaware Technologies has strengthened its innovation team to develop time saving solutions for customers.

Says Suresh Vaswani, joint CEO, Wipro Technologies: “Tough times haven’t gone. We have identified seven themes which will be dominant plays in future”. These ‘seven wonders’ of Wipro are cloud computing, green IT, collaboration software, social computing, information management, mobility and open source. Some of these could potentially be billion dollar business opportunities in future, but Mr Vaswani hesitates to divulge more.

“Even IT, consumer care, lighting were small businesses for Wipro a decade back. Today, they are big. We see similar growth in at least some of the new areas and are consciously studying, building capability on them and making investments in these areas. For Wipro these will be significant game changers in future.” Wipro has taken a long-term view with bets on new areas that could be big businesses of tomorrow.

The second largest IT company, Infosys sees an immediate opportunity in Europe, outside the UK, which has been largely conservative in offshoring work till now. Says Infosys CFO V Balakrishnan: “From a micro level there’s no significant change in business. Companies are struggling with spending. There are indications of things turning around by December. We are strengthening the sales front end as we see new growth coming out of France and Germany markets, where companies want to offshore to cut costs and improve systems. We are hiring here to strengthen the front end”. The 150 people that it hires locally will be addition to the 700 people it already has in the global sales and marketing team.

Besides bolstering the front end, Infosys is not ignoring the back end either. It wants to hire more domain experts who can help create combined IT-BPO solutions for HR, as there is more demand for combined solutions rather than just IT or BPO. Ditto for TCS which has launched a combined ITBPO platform in areas like life and pensions processing, HR outsourcing and is now developing platform-based offering for finance and accounting and procurement.

US headquartered Cognizant sees an uptake in areas like healthcare, retail, logistics, media and entertainment and is integrating consulting capabilities with its global delivery of services. Says R Chandrasekaran, president & MD, global delivery , Cognizant: “We realised early on that providing great offshore capabilities was not enough and we needed high-level business expertise combined with deep technical experience to properly serve the demands of our client base. Hence our topend consultants team has grown from 600 to 1,800 in over a year”.

While the large companies have invested in new manpower, strengthening front end, smaller players like 5,000 people Hexaware Technologies is extracting more out of its bench and focusing on innovation.

Says its executive chairman Atul Nishar: “Innovation team strength has gone up from 10 to 50 and the employee use has jumped to 75% from about 63-64 % last year. In recent months we have developed new solutions which have helped reduce software testing time by up to 40%”.

Companies that constantly innovate, looking for those niche growth areas are likely to ride the tough time more easily.

Financial crisis? Executive pay on a high

2009-08-18T03:28:00.001-07:00

NEW YORK: With outsized and corrupting corporate pay packages under scrutiny, you might think that companies would be rushing to tamp down their compensation plans. Making sure that pay actually rewards long-term performance, for example, seems a fairly obvious way to allay shareholder fears that managers are lining their pockets rather than safeguarding their companies.

But a study of changes made in pay practices by 191 of the nation’s largest companies this year shows that where pay is concerned, enlightenment remains a long way off. In other words, meet the new pay, same as the old.

The study was conducted by James F. Reda & Associates, an independent compensation consultant in New York, and it looked at proxy filings issued by almost 200 companies in the first half of 2009. The firm analyzed changes these companies made to their pay plans that take effect this year.

The biggest shock? Instead of seeing a greater reliance on long-term incentive programs, the Reda report found that changes in these companies’ plans made short-term incentive pay a bigger part of the compensation pie. Let me say that again: The plans – despite the calamities that short-term profiteering has visited on our economy – made short-term incentives a bigger component of compensation.

Last Friday, troubled financial companies relying on the taxpayers’ dime had to deliver details of their top executives’ compensation packages to Kenneth Feinberg, the government’s so-called pay czar. It will be interesting to see whether Feinberg finds the same short-term incentive skew in those pay packages that Reda did in his study.

"If you were going to encourage long-term thinking and behavior, you would reduce short-term pay, but companies have in fact reduced the long-term programs," Reda said. "This is counter to the direction suggested by the United States Treasury, academics and other expert advisers regarding ways to mitigate risk."

Another troubling finding in the Reda study was an increased use of restricted stock awards that are not performance-based. The awards simply vest over time.

Finally, the study found no significant decline in the use of so-called tax gross-up deals, a shareholder-unfriendly arrangement under which companies foot the bill on taxes that executives owe on their munificent pay packages.

Changes to pay practices were common this year: about 70 percent of the analyzed companies disclosed making some shift, Reda said. Almost 60 percent of the analyzed companies made what he considered to be major changes to their pay plans. But the nature of those changes surprised him.

"I was expecting that a lot of companies would be changing the payouts from cash to stock and then restricting the stock for three to five years," he said. "Or paying out half of the bonus in cash and half in stock that must be held for three years. Those would be helpful changes, but I didn’t see any of that."

Bank of Baroda to hire 3,500 people by March 2010

2009-08-18T03:28:00.000-07:00

NEW DELHI: Bank of Baroda, the country's third-largest public sector lender, is planning to recruit 3,500 people including officers during the
current fiscal.

"We are going to recruit about 3,500 people by March 2010 including 2,000 clerks and 1,000 probationary officers," Bank of Baroda Chairman and Managing Director M D Mallya told media.

Besides, the bank is going to do campus recruitment, he said, adding, "we are planning to go to reputed institutes like IIMs and IITs".

As many as 200 management students and engineers will be hired during the year, he said.

In addition to this, the bank will recruit 250 agriculture officers.

In a bid to diversify its business, BoB will form a life insurance venture with UK-based Legal and General Group.

"We have made considerable progress and secured R1 (initial regulatory clearance)," he said.

The bank has applied for R2 clearance from the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority, he said, adding, "we are hopeful that in the next four to five months all the necessary regulatory approvals would be obtained".

Tech Mahindra becomes No 4 in IT cos' list

2009-04-13T22:39:00.000-07:00

BANGALORE: Maimed and left gasping for a lifeline, Satyam Computer Services has finally found its new knight in shining armour, Tech Mahindra(TechMa).

The bidding process for the beleaguered software firm culminated on Monday with TechMa emerging as the highest bidder with an offer price of Rs 58 per share. TechMa's price outbid other suitors, engineering giant Larsen & Toubro and private equity player Wilbur Ross, by a comfortable margin.

L&T's bid of Rs 45.90 per share and Wilbur Ross' Rs 20, were not even within striking distance of TechMa's deal-winning bid.

At Rs 58 per share, Tech Mahindra will acquire a controlling stake of 51% in Satyam for Rs 2,889 crore, pegging the total value of the company at Rs 5,665 crore. In the first stage, Satyam will issue 30.27 crore shares to TechMa, representing 31% of the company's share capital, which will infuse Rs 1,756 crore into the company. In the second stage, TechMa will have to mandatorily make an open offer to Satyam's existing shareholders for another 20%.

However, L&T, which holds a 12% stake in Satyam, will not participate in the open offer for shareholders as it has a lock-in period of six months.

Predictably, both the TechMa and Satyam stocks were caught in a volatile vortex during the days trading. Soon after the Satyam board meet in the early part of the day, the Tech Mahindra scrip on BSE gained 25% to Rs 400. However, late profit-taking shaved off part of its early gains and the stock closed at Rs 349, up 12.3%. While the Satyam stock rallied 16.5% in intra-day trades, it closed at Rs 49, up a mere 3.6%. In mid-session trading, the Satyam ADR was down 15% at $2.25 on New York Stock Exchange.

The acquisition catapults TechMa into the fourth position in the pecking order of IT firms, after HCL Technologies.

However, inevitably, questions are being asked about the winning bid. Have the Mahindras over-valued Satyam, especially since distressed asset buyer Wilbur Ross priced its bid as low as Rs 20? Interestingly, Cognizant, which was to bid jointly with Wilbur Ross, decided to back off at the last minute. Some IT analysts have also described the deal as ``disastrous''.

Defending his bid price, TechMa chairman Anand Mahindra said: ``When you are running in a race, you don't look behind who's chasing you. We believe our bid is rightly priced.'' It is estimated that Satyam's liabilities could be as high as $1 billion. TechMa director Bharat Doshi said that the bid price was determined by the company after taking into account Satyam's liabilities.

Even though the auditors, Deloitte and KPMG, are still in the process of restating Satyam's accounts, a rough calculation of the company's financials was presented to the bidders. As per this calculation, Satyam's annual revenues are expected to decline from $1.8 bn to $1.3 bn. Satyam's operating margin is said to be around 3% vis-a-vis Tech Ma's 22%.

For TechMa, Satyam complements its business, with no client overlap. While the former is a strong player in telecom (75% of revenues), Satyam caters to financial services, manufacturing and healthcare, among others. ``It will require a fair amount of work to bring Satyam back to its past glory. It will be a challenge to make Satyam financially strong so as to retain clients,'' said Vineet Nayyar, TechMa vice chairman and CEO.

With Satyam having a large clientele of over 500 clients -some of them as large as GE, Cisco, Citi and General Motors -Mahindra said: ``I will personally reach out to John Chambers (chairman of Cisco), Vikram Pandit of Citi and Fritz Henderson (GM CEO) to restore confidence in Satyam and us.''

After 100 days of uncertainty, Satyam's acquisition dispels the anxiety of 48,000 Satyamites, ushering in a sense of positivity. The company's former chairman B Ramalinga Raju had, in January, revealed that he had manipulated the company's accounts to the extent of Rs 7,800 crore. He has been behind bars since then, awaiting trial.

Announcing the winning bid, Kiran Karnik, chairman of the government-appointed Satyam board, said: ``Today, we have reached a final culmination stage, and though there are a few steps more to go, what it marks is the end of uncertainty.''

The other logical question is: will TechMa retain the Satyam brand name, given the unwholesome ring it has acquired in the past five months? Meanwhile, Mahindra rubbished rumours that TechMa's strategic partner, British Telecom, did not support the Satyam bid. Incidentally, British Telecom is also TechMa's largest client.

Executives quit foreign jobs for IIMC programme

2009-04-13T22:37:00.000-07:00

KOLKATA: At least six to seven executives working in senior positions abroad have foregone an annual salary package of anything between $100,000 and $150,000 to join an MBA programme at the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta.

This is the third year of the post graduate programme for executives (PGPEX) but this is the first time that so many have kicked foreign jobs to be here.

Take the case of Jayeeta Sharma, a business associate at Millenium Operations in New York, who quit her job that paid a neat 100,000 USD.

“It indeed was a major decision to quit the comfort of a cushy job and once again enter student life. But it was pointless spending 120,000 USD on tuition fees in a US business school when the market conditions are so bad,” she admits.

The ongoing economic slump has played a major role in this decision making, they confide. Sushmita Kanjilal, another PGPEX candidate preferred to quit her position from TCS in the US. “I was in a techie role but wanted a direct managerial role. Moreover, the market in the US is not too good now, so I have decided to study in the meantime and then hope for a better growth through placements,” she said.

Tauqueer Ali has 9 years of experience and was earning a huge salary at a US outfit of IBM Global Services. “The PGPEX placements at IIM-C has even given 100 per cent hikes salarywise in the Indian context. I have plans to live and work in India for sometime,” he said.

Candidates who have quit senior positions in the Nuclear Power Corporation, NTPC, BSNL, BHEL and Tata Steel have also joined this PGPEX batch of 55. “PGPEX was designed to give senior executives with a considerable work experience, a chance to get an MBA degree. We are extremely happy to get people with such diverse backgrounds,” said the chairperson of PGPEX, Biju Abraham.

TCS, Wipro, Infosys among cos hiring people: Forbes

2009-04-13T22:34:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK: In these times of dwindling job opportunities, American magazine Forbes has named Indian IT majors, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro and
Infosys, among the companies which are either hiring or laying off lesser number of employees.

The three Indian entities along with the likes of UK retailer Tesco and Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia are part of the Forbes list titled 'Global 2000 Companies That Are Hiring'.

In addition to these five companies, UK's Compass Group, IT entity Accenture, Germany-based Metro AG, Mexico's Femsa and France-based Veolia Environment also feature in the list.

"Jobs openings are scarce, but these companies are either hiring or laying off relatively few workers," it said. The magazine noted that technology and service firms dominate the "list of job creators".

These firms are among the world's 2000 biggest companies compiled by Forbes and the league is topped by American industrial conglomerate General Electric. It also includes 47 Indian entities.

Forbes said TCS has about 1,30,000 employees whereas Wipro has a total employee strength of 97,000 and Infosys' has nearly 1,03,000 employees

Tech Mahindra bid price beat Satyam board expectation

2009-04-13T22:33:00.001-07:00

It was a day of conflicting emotions for the six wise men who constitute the Satyam board. The morning began on a rather sombre note, with the board
receiving a letter from Cognizant Technologies informing it that the company was withdrawing from the race.

A few hours later, disappointment turned to elation, as the Tech Mahindra financial bid was opened and the board members realised that the offer price exceeded their expectations by a considerable margin.

For the past few days, the board members had exuded optimism in public. But internally, they were jittery about the outcome, and unsure about the number of bids. Worse, they didn’t know the price at which the suitors would eventually bid.

They were hoping the highest bid would be in the Rs 40-50 range, aware that they would have a problem on their hands if the highest bid turned out to be less than Rs 40, given that Satyam shares had closed on Thursday — the last trading day before the bidding — at Rs 47. Most board members would have been happy with a price close to the Thursday’s closing price of Rs 47.

After all, the board had been appointed by the government and was aware that it would be panned severely by stakeholders and bidders such as BK Modi, who withdrew at an early stage, if the company was sold ‘cheap’. But the board members also knew they would be at the receiving end for mishandling the process if they did not go ahead with the sale.

The board feared the opprobrium that would be heaped on it by stakeholders and bidders such as BK Modi, who withdrew at an early stage, if the company was sold cheaply. The directors also knew that they would be accused of mishandling the process if a deal was not clinched. And then, there was also the issue of personal reputations, built over decades. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t!

So, when the directors — Kiran Karnik, Tarun Das, Deepak Parekh, TN Manoharan, S Mainak, and C Achuthan — trooped into the board room, anticipation was mixed with apprehension. There was palpable relief when Larsen & Toubro, Wilbur Ross, and Tech Mahindra submitted technical and financial bids: the process was not going to be a washout after all.

The directors then divided themselves into three groups, with each team examining one bid followed by all of them together discussing a bid. The board had listed about 20-25 points in the technical criteria and the bidders had responded to each one. Assisting the board were its management advisors, Homi Khusrokhan and Partho Datta, representatives from investment banks — Goldman Sachs and Avendus — and lawyers from Amarchand Mangaldas.

By 11 am, all the technical bids had passed muster. All the bidders were called in and the financial bids were now opened alphabetically, with L&T being the first. Justice SP Barucha who oversaw the bidding process wrote the bid prices on his notebook and passed it on to the board members.

Some board members were expecting Wilbur Ross to bid aggressively, believing , perhaps erroneously, that the firm would be loathe to pass up on a turnaround opportunity as tempting as Satyam. Instead, Wilbur Ross bid was a paltry Rs 20 per share. But that disappointment soon turned into joy when they saw that Tech Mahindra had bid at Rs 58 per share, well above expectations. The six wise men sat poker-faced, without a hint of emotion on their face.

But they knew that their mission had been accomplished. Satyam would be saved. Their reputations, too, stood burnished. Not that any of them wanted an event such as Satyam to reoccur.

Muthoot Group to open 400 branches; hire 3,000 people

2009-04-13T22:33:00.000-07:00

NEW DELHI: Muthoot Group on Monday said it will open 400 branches in the next six months and hire 3,000 persons to meet its expansion plans.

"We are opening these branches to ensure we reach out to the unmet demand. While others are hesitant in giving loans, we are increasing our loan portfolio significantly," the Muthoot Group Chairman M G George Muthoot said.

With the addition of 400 branches, the total branch tally of the group would rise to 1,500 by September this year.

He added, "We have always believed in putting in effort and growing despite adverse conditions. We expect to add around 3,000 employees to cater to this growth."

The Muthoot Group, with a network of over 1,100 branches across the country has an annual turnover of Rs 20,000 crore. The group has multiple interests in businesses ranging from financial services, infrastructure & housing, information technology, power generation, hospitality, media to healthcare and education.

Fresh placements halved in Jan-March: Assocham

2009-04-13T22:30:00.002-07:00

NEW DELHI: Fresh placements in IT and banking dipped by 49 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2008-09 over the previous three months, a study by
industry chamber Assocham said.

Assocham Placement Parameter (APP) Composite Index, which tracks employment generation in the major sectors of India, has reduced to half in January-March over the last three months of 2008, the chamber said.

"AAP Composite Index has reduced to half as most of the highest employment generating sectors have curtailed their hiring," it said.

The sector which have recorded maximum decline in job creation include education, hospitality, IT, real estate, banking, textile, auto, construction and engineering, it said.

"As the pressure of recession intensified on the Indian economy, employment generation has become a serious issue for the country whose capacity for job creation in the organised sector has taken severe hit with dipping growth rates," said Assocham President Sajjan Jindal.

The index of IT sector witnessed a substantial decline of over 50 per cent due to contraction in demand in its major markets in the US and Europe.

Index of the education sector which accounts for considerable job creation in the economy fell by 74.63 per cent, it added.

Wipro Technologies to honour job offers, with a rider

2009-04-13T22:30:00.001-07:00

BANGALORE: Wipro Technologies, the third-largest IT services exporter from India, will be honouring all the remaining job offers made to the engineering graduates during 2008-09 fiscal, but with a rider.

In the letter dispatched to remaining 6,000 fresh engineering graduates, Wipro Technologies has said that these students would come onboard between May and December 2009, undergo training for two months, and if they are not engaged in any billable project, will be paid only a stipend of Rs 6,000 per month.

Wipro had made offers to 14,000 engineering graduates to join the company during 2008-09 fiscal with salaries in the range of Rs 2.75-3.25 lakh per annum and the induction of 40% has been delayed by six months.

Pradeep Bahirwani, vice-president of talent acquisition, Wipro Technologies, said that this step was taken due to the changed business environment. He further said that if these fresh hires are not put onto any billable project, they would be given further training through the web.

Of the 14,000 offers made by Wipro Technologies, it is estimated that around 6,000 have already joined the company. This changed offer status will apply to those who are joining in the next six months or so.

Mr Bahirwani said that it has also waived the Rs 75,000 bond requirement which was placed upon these students, if they leave the company within 15 months. During the training period of two months, these fresh employees are paid a stipend of Rs 15,000.

The Wipro official claimed that they have received positive response from the remaining students of the revised offer as they are being absorbed by an IT major and they would be put on a project, depending on the orders they receive.

Wipro Technologies, at the same time has already made offers to 8,000 engineering graduates for joining them during the 2009-10 fiscal.

This is the second time in the recent past, that Wipro Technologies has tweaked the hiring policies of fresh engineering graduates. Earlier, it had made a one time offer to students with the option of joining the BPO division of the company and later getting back into the IT services segment.

The process of giving offer letters to engineering graduates one year in advance by the IT companies in India has undergone a change with Nasscom saying that firms would approach colleges only during the last two months before the academic graduation.

It's hiring time at big retails for front-end ops

2009-04-13T22:30:00.000-07:00

BANGALORE: Prominent retail firms are scouring the job market for people to man front-end staff positions as high attrition levels threaten to
affect their operations and crimp expansion plans.

Many retailers have cut down on the number of stores they plan to open but have not stopped expansions completely. Their existing outlets are also seeing an outflow of employees, who change jobs for incremental salary hikes.

The Future Group, for instance, expects to have at least eight properties operational by June 2009 and is looking to employ about 1,600 overall or 200 people per store, a company spokesperson said.

Yum! Restaurants International, owner of brands such as KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, is also looking to hire about 1,500 front-end staff, a retail industry official said. Spencer’s Retail is planning to hire about 1,400, while Mahindra & Mahindra’s retail venture will add about 100 people for its Mom & Me stores.

“Our expansion plan, being focussed on specific geographies, has made hiring significantly lower this year. We will, however, require about 1,400 shop-level staff,” a Spencer’s Retail spokesperson said.

Retail Employability and Careers Hub (REACH) has already placed about 300 people from towns such as Chittorgarh, Shamshadabad and cities such as Chennai and Delhi over the past five months.

The move shows that despite a gloomy economic scenario, hiring has not completely stopped at the country’s retail firms. Many still continue to hire, though at lower levels and for considerably tinier salaries.

Industry experts say that retailers are also trying to fill up the requirement of an estimated 2-3 lakh skilled workforce at the entry level. This shortage arose because the supply-side response was inadequate to match the 30-40% growth rate in $25-billion organised Indian retail market over the past few years.

KPMG India’s ‘Indian Retail: Time to Change Lanes’ report released in March 2009 suggests that despite the slowdown, attrition has not been impacted.

The report said that hiring of fresh graduates without experience had led to over-ambitious expansion plans leaving firms struggling, suggesting that talent development needed to be brought in-house. “Organised food and grocery retail, unlike apparel and electronics, is fairly recent due to which it has been unable to build a talent pool,” a Spencer’s Retail spokesperson added.

The changing geography of the retail industry has meant expansion to tier II and tier III cities, where skilled labour is limited and relocation is a problem.

“In the larger scheme of things, this gap exists because the basic school education does not provide employability skills,” CEO of REACH, Suki Iyer said. This drought is also because people are unaware of the growth opportunity and are unwilling to work at the low pay.

Infosys fires 2,100 for poor performance

2009-04-13T22:26:00.000-07:00

BANGALORE: Infosys Technologies has fired 2,100 people across the country, after an annual performance appraisal exercise concluded mid-March. TV Mohandas Pai, head of the company's HR, told TOI that based on the performance, 2,100 employees had left Infosys. "The tolerance for non-performance has come down to zero," said Pai.

"The appraisal was conducted for 60,000 of our employees. At the bottom, some 3.5% of the people were either outplaced or left the company. It's an annual scenario after every performance assessment. In fact, normally the bottom size is 5%,'' he said. Trainees were not part of this exercise.

Outplacement is a new jargon used by enterprises, which means off-loading excess/unwanted staff to another employer. However, outplacing is not a viable option in the current scenario where few jobs are available in the market.

Infosys currently has an employee base of 1,05,000 which includes 45,000 trainees who were not part of this appraisal exercise. During quarter ending December 31, the company had a total headcount of 1,03,078.

A quarter ago Infosys had said it would hire 26,000 people during fiscal 2008-09, more than what it had projected in the beginning of the year. During the third quarter, the company made a gross addition of 5,997 with the net intake being 2,772.

Infosys has made offers to around 20,000 engineering graduates for the current year. The company has been vocal about honouring all the offers it made to freshers. Infosys' earnings for 2008-09 will be out on April 15.

IIM-Indore average salary declines by 15-20%

2009-03-12T23:25:00.001-07:00

KOLKATA: Indian Institute of Management Indore (IIM-I) has wrapped up its two-phase final placement process with the entire batch of 175 students
getting placed over a total of 10 days. Though the institute was unwilling to comment on the actual figures, it claimed that this year’s highest international offer from an IT major represented an increase of 40% over last year.

However, the average salary declined by around 15-20% compared to last year. This year’s highest domestic offer from an Indian conglomerate in the infrastructure space too, was reportedly lower than last year.

Over 106 companies participated in the placement process this time as compared to 95 last year. The number of new companies participating in the final placement process registered an increase to around 71 as against 30 last year. New recruiters on campus included UTI Mutual Fund, Mahindra and Mahindra, Virgin Mobile, Unicon Securities, Eli Lilly and Infrasoft Technologies, among others. Exclusive recruiters included The Modi Group and Indebo. However, companies like JP Morgan, Procter & Gamble dropped out of the process this time.

"The institute has expanded its footprint to tap the opportunities in diverse sectors this year in the face of a global slowdown, the result of which has been reflected in the students securing niche profiles in sectors such as financial consulting, healthcare, travel & international tourism, micro banking, pharma, private equity and the like," said an IIM-I placement committee official.

According to the IIM-I placement committee official, nearly 50% of the candidates have been placed in the financial services sector, which includes the gamut of banking, credit rating, group corporate finance, trading, broking and other financial services. Sales and marketing accounted for around 20%, consulting around 10% and other sectors like general management, IT, systems and operations made up the balance.

IIM-I placement chairman Prashant Salwan said, "Despite the global downturn, foreign offers have seen a substantial jump with several organisations recruiting exclusively from IIM Indore." Yes Pay International, for instance, has given offers in Canada and UK for business development and marketing profiles. The institute did not disclose the actual number of foreign offers.

Regular recruiters such as Deutsche Bank, HSBC Global Research, Standard Chartered Bank, Axis Bank, Yes Bank, FuturesFirst, Johnson & Johnson, ITC, Deloitte Innovation, Knightfrank, Larsen & Toubro, Jindal Steel & Power Corporation, Infosys, and CTS were among those who participated in the placements.

PSUs like Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, SAIL, SEBI, IOCL and BPCL also participated and recruited students for senior management roles across functions.

Siemens cuts working days to avoid stock build up

2009-03-12T23:24:00.000-07:00

MUMBAI: Siemens Ltd said it has planned a temprorary cut in the number of days its switchgear factories will work to avoid inventory build-ups amid
the deepening economic slowdown.

The Aurangabad and Kalwa plants will now work 3-4 days a week, the company said in a stock exchange release Thursday.

Siemens also said "some factories in the energy sector" will reduce their working weeks by one day. It did not provide further details.

Start-ups get access to best B-school talent

2009-03-12T23:23:00.000-07:00

BANGALORE: Start-ups have never had it so good at the portals of India’s best-known B-school campuses, Indian Institute of Management (IIM).
Hitherto unreachable, today, driven by the macro-economic climate, IIM graduates are far more amenable to much lower salaries at start-ups and the social sector.

Start-up companies are hoping to get some of these graduates on board by shelling out salaries in the region of Rs 15 lakh per annum. The number of start-ups visiting IIM campuses this year has doubled, and there has been a marked increase in the number of students willing to consider them.

Bangalore-based start-up MxV, a strategy and management consulting firm, founded by former executives at Mckinsey and BCG, have recruited from IIM-Kozhikode. According to sources, start-ups at IIM-K, which has a batch size of 185, are paying between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 15 lakh per annum.

The scene is similar at Indian School of Business (ISB) at Hyderabad, where 10 start-ups are hiring and students are in talks with 10-15 other firms. At ISB, start-ups have, so far, hired 44 students, which is 4% of the 440 students who have opted for placements. “I got around Rs 12 lakh a year. What more can I expect now? I am happy working for a new company,” said 26-year-old ISB student, who did not want to be named.

At IIM-Lucknow, which will finish its placement on Monday, nearly 10 start-ups are hiring graduates from a class of 267. “We are seeing an increase in the number of start-up companies visiting, as well as, hiring at our campus,” said Prof Sushil Kumar, placement chairperson at IIM-L. This year, six start-ups have hired from IIM-Bangalore campus for sales, marketing and strategy roles.

“There is an indirect link with the economic slowdown. Also, MBA students, who are very young and do not have experience or capital, are preferring to join start-ups to gain experience. There is also an increase in the number of students who are keen on becoming entrepreneurs,” said Prof K Kumar, chairperson of NSRCEL, an incubation centre
at IIM-B.

Nearly seven IIM-B students are starting their own ventures. Among those is 26-year-old Shobhit Shukla,who has started flowersinstead.com, an online flower retailing venture. “I wanted to do something on my own,” he said.

Online bus tickets booking service provider redbus.in is also making a debut at IIMs looking for graduates for two positions in the areas of analytics and finance. “We are certainly looking at IIMs, IITs and BITS-Pilani. We are not going to tier-II/III schools as there is good availability to fill all our job requirements from IIMs and IITs,” said co-founder and CEO of redBus, Phanindra Sama.

Govt looks to its own to fill CCI vacancies

2009-03-12T23:22:00.000-07:00

NEW DELHI: The government will soon begin to search for officers who have specialised in law, economics and investigation from within its ranks to
send them on deputation in the Competition Commission of India (CCI). Even though the government has sanctioned the appointment of nearly 100 professionals in law, economics and financial analysis to join the CCI, 38 positions are to be filled with serving government officers. A notification to this effect is expected in a few days.

The ministry of corporate affairs will first appoint eligible government officers to save extended time, which is required in the case of an open recruitment system, an official, who did not wish to be named, said. With the government already appointing a chairman and two members at the CCI, the idea is to empower the body with specialised people who could do qualitative and time-bound research. The ministry is working on the employment guidelines for these posts, which include their salaries and other allowances.

The official added that with elections around the corner, the government is refraining from going into a new selection initiative for the fear that such appointments may be termed to be favoured by the present government. The government has earlier issued notifications seeking applications from candidates for appointment as director general in CCI. The government is also at advanced stages of selecting members of the Competition Appellate Tribunal –– a body that will hear cases taken on appeal against CCI’s orders.

Last year, there was speculation that the finance ministry had objected to the demands of the ministry of corporate affairs that competitive pay packages be given to the members and professionals at CCI, as it wanted to match salaries offered by private firms. But the notification seeking applications for CCI members announced a pay package similar to government pay scales.

Volvo Cars in deal with staff to cut pay

2009-03-12T23:21:00.000-07:00

STOCKHOLM: Ford-owned Volvo Cars AB on Thursday said it has entered an agreement with employees to cut pay in a move to reduce costs by nearly 500
million kronor ($57 million) in 2009.

Volvo said the agreement includes stops in production for 45 days in 2009, which will result in monthly pay cuts of up to 5 per cent for plant staff. It will also delay the renegotiation of salaries for all employees until January 2010.

Additionally, 40 leading executives will cut their salaries by 5 per cent until December and all staff will lose their right to 7 days a year of so-called work-time compensation leave.

The Goteborg-based company will also reduce the production volume at its plants in Gent, Belgium and Torslanda, Sweden.

"A similar agreement has never been made before," Volvo Cars Chief Executive Stephen Odell said in a statement. "We are in a unique situation and need to take extraordinary measures. We believe this agreement is a good model to secure our operation and avoid new layoffs."

Ford Motor Co. late last year said it is considering selling the Swedish brand, which it bought in 1999.

Volvo last year cut around 6,000 jobs worldwide, of which about 1,200 were consultants as it struggled against a weak US dollar and declining demand.

As slowdown bites, IIM grads settle for start-ups, NGOs

2009-03-12T23:17:00.001-07:00

BANGALORE: Start-ups never had it so good at India’s best-known B-school campuses, Indian Institute of Management. Hitherto unreachable, today, driven by the macro-economic climate, IIM graduates are far more amenable to much lower salaries at start-ups and the social sector.

Start-up companies are hoping to get some of these graduates on board by shelling out salaries in the region of Rs 15 lakh per annum. The number of start-ups visiting IIM campuses this year has doubled and there has been a marked increase in the number of students willing to consider them.

Bangalore-based start-up MxV, a strategy and management consulting firm founded by former executives at Mckinsey and BCG, have recruited from IIM-Kozhikode .

According to sources, start-ups at IIM-K , which has a batch size of 185, are paying between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 15 lakh per annum. The scene is similar at Indian School of Business at Hyderabad, where 10 start-ups are hiring and students are in talks with 10-15 other firms. At ISB, start-ups have so far hired 44 students, which is 10% of the 440 students who have sat for placements.

“I got around Rs 12 lakh a year. What more can I expect now? I am happy working for a new company,” says 26-year-old ISB student, who did not want to be named.

At IIM-Lucknow , which will finish its placement on Monday, nearly 10 start-ups are hiring graduates from a class of 267. “We are seeing an increase in the number of startup companies visting as well as hiring at our campus,” says Prof Sushil Kumar, placement chairperson at IIM-L .

This year, six start-ups have hired from IIM-Bangalore for sales, marketing and, strategy roles. These include ADPS, Insta Health Solutions, Ecologics, ScanCafe and iRunway and EVI who have hired nearly 10 students, constituting 4% of the batch of 249.

There is an indirect link with the economic slowdown. Also, MBA students who are very young and do not have experience or capital are preferring to join startups to gain experience . There is also an increase in the number of students who are keen on becoming entrepreneurs,” reasons professor K Kumar, chairperson of NSRCEL, an incubation centre at IIM-B .

Seven IIM-B students are starting their own ventures. Among them is 26 -year-old Shobhit Shukla, who has started flowersinstead.com, an online flower retailing venture. “I wanted to do something on my own. There is a high demand for flowers and it is a new concept in Bangalore,” says Mr Shukla, a former software engineer who also plans to start an event management company. Online bus tickets booking service provider redbus.in is also making a debut at IIMs looking for graduates for positions in analytics and finance.

IIM-I average pay drops 20%

IIM-Indore has wrapped up its placement process with all 175 students getting job offers, reports Sreeradha D Basu from Kolkata. Although it did not comment on the actual figures , it claimed this year’s highest international offer from an IT major represented a rise of 40% over last year. However, the average salary fell around 15-20 % compared to last year.

US jobless claims hit 654,000 in week

2009-03-12T23:17:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON: US jobless claims rose to a higher than expected 654,000 in the past week as businesses moved rapidly to cut payrolls amid a prolonged
recession, government data showed Thursday.

Even with the unemployment rate presently at a 25-year high of 8.1 per cent, analysts think the bleeding in the labor market has not ended.

The Labor Department said Thursday the number of initial claims for unemployment benefits rose by 9,000 in the week ending March 7 from the previous week's revised figure of 645,000.

The figure, which measures the number of jobless claims filed by individuals seeking to receive state jobless benefits, was bigger than the 644,000 expected by analysts.

It brought the much-watched four-week moving average to 650,000, the highest level since 1982, the department figures showed.

The total number of unemployed Americans also continued to mount.

According to the department, continuing claims for the week ending February 28 increased to a new record high of 5.317 million from a revised 5.124 million.

"This week's data continued to show the trend of rapid labor market deterioration that has intensified over the first few months of this year," said Andrew Gledhill, an economist at Moody's Economy.com.

He noted initial claims were heading higher, indicating that the pace of layoffs has yet to stabilize, and that continuing claims remained above five million for three consecutive weeks.

"Compared with just a few months ago, the labor market is measurably worse and is likely to get worse still before it eventually gets better," Gledhill said, citing businesses that were rapidly cutting payrolls with fewer hires and more layoffs.

"Layoffs will increase even further over the next several months, which combined with scarce job openings and slow hiring will lead to a growing number of unemployed. This is a mounting burden on households, threatening their primary income source."

Ian Shepherdson, chief US economist at High Frequency Economics, said initial claims were still nowhere near their peak, which he forecast could well be "close to a million."

"The steady increase suggests that the rate of decline of payrolls is likely to accelerate further, putting yet more downward pressure on aggregate incomes," he said.

The US unemployment rate soared from 7.6 per cent in January to 8.1 in February, the highest since December 1983.

The bleak labor market underscores the challenges facing President Barack Obama's administration in stabilizing a teetering financial system and pulling the shrinking economy out of a downward spiral.

Based on the most recent government estimate, US gross domestic product contracted at an eye-popping 6.2 per cent annual pace in the fourth quarter of 2008, and some analysts say the downturn may be even worse in the first quarter of 2009.

44% Indian businesses expect rise in job opportunities

2009-03-12T23:14:00.001-07:00

MUMBAI: Despite the global economic downturn and news of job lay-offs hogging the headlines, 44 per cent of businesses in India are expecting an increase in job opportunities in the next one year, according to a Grant Thornton research report.

However, employees at nearly one-fifth of privately held businesses, globally, could see no salary increases in the year ahead, the report said.

"About 44 per cent businesses in India expect an increase in employment opportunities in the ensuing 12-months, while 16 per cent believe that employment opportunities would decrease and the rest (40 per cent) expect it to remain unchanged," the Grant Thornton International Business Report said.

Twenty-one per cent of businesses plan to offer no pay raise in 2009, while 3 per cent actually expect to reduce pay. Only 10 per cent of businesses expect to increase pay above the rate of inflation, the report said.

"Perhaps more worrying for employees is that a significant number of privately-held businesses (60 per cent) in India intend to increase salaries of their staff only in line with inflation," Grant Thornton India National Markets Leader Monish Chatrath said.

44% Indian businesses expect rise in job opportunities

2009-03-12T23:14:00.000-07:00

Goldrattspeak: "Don't even contemplate layoffs when India is growing"

2009-02-13T05:54:00.000-08:00

CHENNAI: Well-known thinker Eliyahu M Goldratt simply debunks the meltdown theory, and provides some jaw-dropping statistics to support it. Deeply
disturbed by the pink slip syndrome the world-over, the 62-year-old Israeli scientist and corporate consultant has taken upon himself the onerous task of communicating the rationale behind not even "contemplating layoffs."

"There is world-wide panic but there is no reason for it. It is a financial crisis, not an economic meltdown!" were the opening lines from the turbo-charged Goldratt, when ET caught up with the multi-faceted person in Chennai in an hour-long session on Tuesday.

While the global economy is bound to witness oscillations, Mr Goldratt said it is only purchases that are credit-driven such as cars and houses that had seen the slump. "There has been no meltdown in consumption," the globe-trotting thinker added.

This fact he established with the example of a multi-billion dollar Japanese electronics component manufacturer. After its November'08 sales dropped, the following month saw a 50% decline in sales. Never having encountered such a phenomenon in its corporate history, the company was evaluating the "lay-off" path. Five top managers of the company, which generates 80% sales outside of Japan, came consulting Mr Goldratt.

An advocator of the "cause and effect" philosophy, he said every company is part of a supply chain. Though OEs such as Sony and Panasonic reported of a dramatic drop in sales, it was not the same at the customer end. In fact, compared to last year, the retail sales of electronic consumer goods had gone up by 14%, Mr Goldratt said, reaffirming that consumption had not dwindled.

It is the cleanup inventory pile exercise that is responsible for companies pushing themselves over the cliff, triggering "hysteria" all-round and damaging the social infrastructure. Even the ones who are in remote locations would feel the impact more due to the snowballing effect.

"The inventory has to go up again. It is time to go to the vendors and help them out of this phase," Mr Goldratt said.
His advice to corporates: "Don't panic. Don't cut people. Be in touch with your end customer."

This is a transition phase, Mr Goldratt said, noting that markets would continue to grow. It is just a reduction in the rate of the "phenomenal" growth that emerging markets and developing economies such as India and China have been seeing.

"There is no meltdown, recession or slowdown in India. It is only gross national product (GNP) growth that has slowed down. India had embarked on a fantastic growth path." "Though the 8-9% GDP growth has reduced, it is expected to be 5%. But, you're are still growing", he pointed out.

Warning companies, that are reluctant to invest, as to having to do a "catch up much harder," he put forth his viewpoint: "How can you can lay off people when the economy is still growing? When the demand picks up, (which is bound to happen), you will face shortage. Either you will need them or your competitor. What will they think of you if you go back to hire them?"

Lay-off is a bad strategy for it affects the dignity of labour. This could even force the person to take adverse measures, he said, exhorting corporates to "make the best use of manpower and people. Keep your supply chain busy."
Mr Goldratt said with crude prices touching an all-time low, freight and shipping costs, materials and metal costs had gone down by half. "Internally and externally, there is a huge advantage. India must seize this fantastic opportunity to focus on exports," he added.

By illustrating the steady wage climb that China has been experiencing since the late Eighties, he said it has exceeded the GNP rate. This has added more people to the job market and boosted the purchasing power. That way, China not only turned into being the world's biggest producer but also the biggest consumer as well. China is no longer a second-world country. Still, Chinese wages are growing at 25% annually.

Similarly, India with a large pool of middle-class is emerging as the biggest producer and consumer in the world. "You are exactly going the same way. Look, two billion people are added to the consumer world and you are talking of recession. Are you out of your mind? The middle-class consumption is going up. It is time that companies started investing in products and services consumed by lower middle class. First, such a class should be defined," Mr Goldratt noted.

Appreciating India's management bandwidth and talent, he said except for Japan, its quality is unparalleled. "The knowledge possessed by an average Indian manufacturer is far superior to those in Europe and the US. If you have the top quality design and managers, it will automatically lead to operational efficiency," Mr Goldratt said, asking Indians to shed their inferiority complex.

However, he sounded a caution to companies scouting for mega acquisitions. Citing the instance of the Tata-Corus deal, he said "first you must learn to eat a rabbit. Don't start by eating an elephant." Because of this, Tata Steel, which has registered 35% net profit on sales, is now having to focus all its energies on Corus, a conventional company.

Kinetic Engg offers VRS at Ahmednagar

2009-02-13T05:53:00.001-08:00

PUNE/MUMBAI: Kinetic Engineering has announced a voluntary retirement scheme for its 496 workers at its Ahmednagar plant in Maharashtra.

The Pune-based auto parts major expects the move to reduce its wage bill and operating overheads, the company said in a statement. Kinetic, formerly a moped and motorcycle maker, focuses on component manufacturing.

The company said that it expected at least 150 people to accept the offer, which should help it save about Rs 10 lakh per month. Sulajja Firodia Motwani, Kinetic Engineering MD, said that VRS was not just to reduce the number of workers but also to bring down the average age of the workforce at the factory.

“We are now moving from a two-wheeler component maker to a component supplier of three- and four-wheeler companies internationally. This requires new skills and a younger workforce,” she said.

With the current slowdown, order schedules are also down. Hence, we thought this was the time to bring in a VRS,” she said.

The VRS, which opened on Monday, is expected to stay open for the next two-three weeks. The last VRS offered by Kinetic Engineering was in 2007, when it sold its automotive manufacturing business to group company Kinetic Motor, which was later sold to Mahindra & Mahindra. The company shed 350 workers in that that round of VRS. Shares of the company closed at Rs 45, up 4%, on BSE on Monday.

Firodia Motwani said that the company is still in the process of turning around, a process delayed due to the deferring of Tata’s Nano launch. “We have invested in capacities for the Nano and its delay has hit our turnaround plans,” she said.

Caterpillar offers 2,000 workers early retirement

2009-02-13T05:53:00.000-08:00

BOSTON: US heavy equipment maker Caterpillar Inc on Wednesday offered voluntary early retirement packages to about 2,000 production workers.

The cuts are in addition to the 22,000 layoffs the company announced last month, as it scrambles to cope with a downturn in demand for construction and mining equipment. The packages would be offered to workers in Illinois, Colorado, Tennessee and Pennsylvania.

"Our intent is to provide eligible employees the opportunity to retire early as we expect significant declines in all geographic regions," said Sid Banwart, vice president over human services at the Peoria, Illinois-based company.

GM India says no lay off plans in country

2009-02-13T05:52:00.000-08:00

TALEGAON (MAHARASHTRA): General Motors India, on Thursday said that it would not lay off any of its 4,000 employees even though its parent has
decided to remove 10,000 of its workforce globally by May this year.

"We don't have any plan to lay off employees in India," GM India President and Managing Director Karl Slym told reporters here.

General Motors Corporation had recently announced its plan to lay off 10,000 personnel globally to counter the on-going global meltdown.

Admitting that there was pressure in India as well due to the economic meltdown, company Director and Vice President (Corporate Affairs) P Balendran said, for the current year GM India expected to clock an around 9.5 per cent growth as in the previous two years.

The company GM India has two manufacturing plants in India- Halolin Gujarat and Talegaon in Maharashtra. It has a technical center in Bangalore. GM has made an USD 1-billion investment commitment to India.

General Motors India is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the world's largest auto-maker, General Motors Corporation.

400 employees quit Maytas in 2 months.

2009-02-13T05:50:00.001-08:00

HYDERABAD: Close to 12% of Maytas Infra’s employees, the infrastructure firm promoted by fraud-hit Satyam Computer Services, have exited the firm after the company allegedly failed to pay salaries for January. Over 400 employees are believed to have quit the company in the past two months, following the Satyam-Maytas aborted deal in December last.

Employees at all levels have put in their papers. “There has been a mass exodus. Employees, right from the vice-president level to junior ones have quit,” said a senior official from the company on condition of anonymity. Maytas Infra employed over 3,100 people, as per company officials, which has come down to 2,700 now.

However, the company denied the fact that the employees have left the organisation for defaulting salaries to them. The company officials also did not confirm the number of employees, who exited the firm.

“Some employees have left our organisation. But it is a common and continuous process, as every organisation will be facing attrition, and the past two months were not an exception. Besides, we have also done headcount rationalisation by which poor-performers were asked to leave the organisation.

There is no default on January salary payments, though there is some delay due to the investigations at Satyam Computer Services. As part of the investigation process, our accounts were frozen and the company’s operations were also affected. However, we will pay the salary for January at the earliest,” said a company spokesperson.

Employees of the firm are looking for jobs though. Confirming this, construction companies in the city say that they have received several resumes from Maytas staffers in the past two weeks.

Companies, however, said they are not willing to hire Maytas employees, as it is difficult to match their huge pay packages at a time when the construction sector is confronted with a slump.

“When Maytas Infra recruited people they offered salaries at double the market rate. Now, to match such salaries or even offer them anything close to their present packages is just not possible for us,” said IVRCL MD E Sudhir Reddy.

His company has received over a dozen of resumes from Maytas staff so far but none have been called for an interview.
Other companies that received queries about job openings from former Maytas employees said employees of the Satyam-backed infrastructure company also agreed to settle for a pay cut of 10-15%.

Govt to take steps to save jobs in affected sectors: Min

2009-02-13T05:44:00.000-08:00

India is concerned about job losses in the civil aviation, textile, and gem and jewellery sectors and will take steps to retain jobs in
the affected sectors, the federal labour minister said on Friday.

"We will give everything to the industry that is required to carry on," Oscar Fernandes said.

"Export is one area which is affected. We are concerned about job losses in civil aviation, textile, diamond and gems and jewellery sectors," Fernandes said.

Morgan Stanley to slash 1,800 jobs

2009-02-03T21:45:00.000-08:00

LONDON: Investment bank Morgan Stanley is all set to prune its workforce by 1,800 employees, or about four per cent of its global manpower, in the
wake of economic turmoil.

"Morgan Stanley is preparing to cut up to 1,800 jobs, or about 4 per cent of its global workforce, as the financial crisis continues to take its toll on Wall Street," the Financial Times said.

Quoting people close to the situation the report said, " the fresh round of job cuts was part of Morgan Stanley's efforts to reduce its staff to reflect sharply lower activity in areas ranging from capital markets to mergers and acquisitions."

The daily attributing to people close to the situation noted that the redundancies would be spread across Morgan Stanley's range of businesses and regions, but would not affect its wealth management unit.

"The cuts were likely to fall more heavily on the bank's back-office and support functions," the report added.

According to the daily, the company's executives have said it wants to shrink its balance sheet and workforce to cope with the crisis, the report noted.

For the full year 2008, Morgan Stanley's profits tumbled to 1.7 billion dollars, compared with 3.2 billion dollars in the year-ago period. While its balance sheet dropped from "1,000 billion dollars-worth of assets to 650 billion dollars as the company slashed its debt levels".

Financial institutions worldwide have cut thousands of jobs in recent months as part of their efforts to cope with the financial crisis, which even saw the collapse of Lehman Brothers last year.

One crore job cuts likely this fiscal

2009-02-03T21:43:00.000-08:00

Ahead of general elections, massive job cuts in labour-intensive industries are giving UPA government the heebie-jeebies. Exports for January have nosedived by 22% and projections indicate that upto one crore persons could lose jobs in the current fiscal ending March.

The export sector data flowing in has increased pressure on the government which has been trying to spur domestic demand to offset decline in overseas orders ever since the global economic slowdown kicked in around September last year. Based on order books, industry inputs predicted a crore of job losses, an estimate that has worried the government.

Aware that the economy might become an election issue, Congress’s draft manifesto has promised greater employment and populist schemes. If the bad news of the economy gets worse, these claims will sound less than convincing.

Ficci found that faced with a slump and piled up inventories, industries like textiles, garments, chemicals and gems and jewellery had cut production by 10-50%. The commerce ministry, through surveys carried out by its own field officials recently, found over one lakh people had already lost jobs upto January 15 in just the 400 units examined.

The one crore figure has been compiled by Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) which says it has carried out an intensive survey.

Ajai Sahai, director general of FIEO, told TOI that textile, garments and handicraft sectors were the worse affected. “Together they are set to lose more than 4 million jobs by April 2009,” he added. Other sectors that could lose anywhere between 5 and 10 lakh jobs each include gems and jewellery, chemicals and engineering and auto component sectors.

The government seems quite aware of the export sector’s woes. “In view of contracting global demand, we have to focus on domestic demand by primarily stimulating growth in rural areas and highly labour intensive sectors,” foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee, who also holds the finance portfolio, had said on Monday after reviewing the economy and quality of credit delivery.

Finance secretary Arun Ramanathan told TOI that government would at this point concentrate on implementing the stimulus packages announced earlier and ensuring that the job losses are compensated with new ones. “There is no problem of finances. There is enough money to fund companies’ working capital as well as future projects,” Ramanathan said.

The cabinet secretary has also held meetings to review the stimulus rollout while urging states to ramp up public spending. Against the initial export target of $200 billion, government is hopeful of touching $170 billion by the end of this fiscal.

Global downturn to cost 15 lakh Indian jobs by March

2009-02-03T21:42:00.000-08:00

NEW DELHI: With global downturn taking its toll on India, about 15 lakh people employed in the exporting sector will be out of jobs by March this year, Commerce Secretary G K Pillai said today.

"We have figures from August till middle of January. We estimate something like between 7-10 lakh job losses till now," Pillai told a news channel in an interview.

He said if the slowdown, especially in the US, Europe and Japan continues, another five lakh people would be unemployed by March.

Earlier in the day, Pillai told reporters that the prospects for the country's outward trade look bleak for the next fiscal as well.

"It would be an achievement if we reach $160 billion-mark in 2009-2010," he said.

After an impressive expansion of over 30 per cent in the first six months of 2008-09, export growth has turned negative with the result that the total shipments in the current fiscal would fall much short of the $200 billion target.

Though exports account for less than 20 per cent of the country's GDP, the sector is highly employment oriented with the total estimated 6.5 crore workforce.

"Exports are going to come down and we have to live with it," Pillai said.

Tata group's top executives may get 15% salary cut

2009-02-03T21:40:00.000-08:00

Senior executives in several Tata group companies are bracing themselves for a 10-15% salary cut in a bid to reduce wage bill and stave off job cuts at middle and junior levels, executives of at least three Tata companies told ET.

These executives said this is the possibly the first time that the group is planning salary cuts at the senior level. The extent of salary cuts will depend on how severely individual group companies are affected by the downturn.

"We will take a salary cut at the top-management level. This will allow us avoid putting many jobs at the mid and lower levels, across our facilities, at risk. However, a final call on this and the extent to which pay cuts will be effective, is yet to be taken," a top executive at Tata Steel told ET.

Says Tata Motors MD Ravi Kant: "We are considering cuts in compensation of executives. But, the board is yet to take decision. Work on these lines are already underway."

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), which cut staff salaries across-the-board after the IT major failed to meet growth expectations, is also considering further pay cuts at the upper-management level, confirmed a senior group executive.

Some group companies such as Tata Chemicals and Tata Power are, however, striving to avoid taking such drastic steps. "We have formed a central team and have put in place several HR initiative. While a call on pay cuts at Tata Chemicals is not warranted at this juncture, we are taking cautious steps," B Sudhakar, chief HR officer of Tata Chemicals, said.

Tata Steel and Tata Motors have both reported poor results in the December quarter. While the auto maker posted losses of Rs 263 crore, the steel company's net profit dipped 56% as demand fell. Corus, the Anglo-Dutch steel maker that Tata Steel bought for over $13.5 billion, has recently announced around 3,500 job cuts across Europe.

A UK newspaper on Sunday reported that Tata Motors may cut an additional 1,500 jobs if sales don't improve at the troubled Jaguar Land Rover division, which the Indian company took over last year.

A Tata Sons director told ET that individual group companies will have to take their own decisions on what is in the interest of their respective companies. "They will have to act keeping in mind the current economic environment," he added. Tata Tea and Indian Hotels are also contemplating similar moves.

These proposed salary cuts come on the back of a letter written by group chairman Ratan Tata to top group executives where he wrote the country is going through "the worst economic crisis in living history." Mr Tata is understood to have said in the email that "the global financial crisis, non-availability at reasonable rates and falling demand across sectors has severely impacted group businesses."

Mastek asks 425 staff to resign or get trained with nominal salary

2009-02-03T21:39:00.000-08:00

In the first open acknowledgement of the hit the IT industry is taking and the need for companies to downsize, Mumbai-based IT firm Mastek
has given 425 employees the option to resign or stay with the company and receive training.

The employees who stay back will also receive a nominal compensation. All these employees are staff who are not on billable projects and in excess of the regular bench (extra staff most software companies maintain in readiness for new projects).

“We didn’t want to play with our employees and call it non-performance... We are not making this action based on individual performance, we all know it is a downturn,” said chairman and MD Sudhakar Ram. In the last few quarters, nearly all IT firms have become more strict with their performance criteria and have laid off a number of employees for non-performance.

“Employees were satisfied that we have at least given them the option of staying back,” said Mr Ram. Approximately half of these employees are trainees, who had joined the company in July 2008 or later.

Mr Ram expects that about 80% of the 425 employees will opt to stay with the company. The move will help Mastek contain costs and maintain its profit margins, which would have otherwise slipped. If the employees stay back, the company will incur a marginally higher cost, but over a longer period, than if they had opted to resign and taken severance pay.

“There will be costs associated with the training but we can absorb them. We owe that much to the employees,” he said, terming the demand slowdown the industry was facing as unprecedented. Mastek had recruited freshers in anticipation of continued growth in business but a slowdown across many projects saw the bench swell, especially during the October-December period.

“If the demand situation worsens, we may have to look at it (the move) iteratively,” warned Mr Ram. The company continues to maintain a bench, which is approximately 5% of its total staff strength.

The 425 employees, who have been given the option of resigning, are in excess of the normal bench strength and represent about 10% of Mastek’s total staff strength. The company’s announcement came after market hours on Monday and its stock ended flat at Rs 143.75 on the BSE.

Still have a job? Say bye to perks, bankers told..

2009-02-03T21:38:00.000-08:00

London: How about McDonald's for lunch?" Only a year ago top London restaurants buzzed with high-earning bankers but the money-saving quip from one
financial recruiter sums up the new mood of austerity. His client at a large investment bank replied: "It would probably have to be if we were paying", the recruiter told the media.

The near-limitless expense accounts of the boom years have been replaced by a new probity and the banking industry's survivors are cutting costs, as they seek to adjust to a slump in business and multi-billion dollar state bailouts which have made them pariahs.

"There is a new austere mood that you can't be seen being too loud and too brash for fear of people having a go at you," said a senior investment banker in London. The frugality is hitting jobs, bonuses and perks for banking employees such as free fruit at work and taxis home.

Only two years ago, bankers could commonly spend 3,000 or 4,000 pounds ($5,663) just on lunch, and sometimes that much on wine alone, in a Michelin-starred restaurant like Pied a Terre in west London. Now the restaurant, along with other upmarket London eateries, is taking part in a promotion offering huge discounts to clients. Banks, insurers and asset managers have announced around 300,000 layoffs since August 2007.

Wall Street firms slashed cash bonuses for New York City staff by 44 percent in 2008, according to a state report last week. In London, investment bankers' bonuses will likely be down 60 percent, while many will receive no end-of-year award at all, said Sophie Black, a remuneration consultant at accountancy firm Ernst & Young. Asset managers' bonuses will be down 30 to 40 percent, she added.

In Europe, UBS, which received a Swiss government bailout last year, said it is reducing 2008 bonuses for its investment bank by more than 80 percent. Examples of pressure on all expenses at banks are plentiful. Royal Bank of Scotland has cut the hospitality budget for the Six Nations rugby championship it sponsors by 90 percent, said spokeswoman Linda Harper. "We are, of course, reviewing all our sponsorship activity as we look to cut costs across our businesses," she added.

Many bankers attending the World Economic Forum in Davos last week switched from vintage Dom Perignon champagne to ordinary champagne and white wine, caterers told one television channel. U.S. bank Goldman Sachs is keeping in place its policy on free taxis home for employees but they are available only from 10 p.m., an hour later than was allowed a year ago, a spokeswoman said. Last year, rival J.P. Morgan considered reducing the evening meal allowance for staff, according to an internal email seen by Reuters.

The bank declined to comment. The head of Russia's second-largest bank VTB said in October the company would freeze costs for at least a year, starting with his decision to forego flowers on his desk. Banks are cancelling newspaper and magazine subscriptions, encouraging staff to fly economy rather than business class and putting a limit on spending on lunches with clients, bankers said.

And public outcry forced Citigroup, which received bailout funds, to scrap plans to buy a $50 million jet last week. And in another sign of the zeitgeist, former Merrill Lynch Chief Executive John Thain said in an internal memo he will reimburse Bank of America, which now owns Merrill, for the $1.2 million spent to renovate his office a year ago. Thain, ousted from Bank of America this month, called the expenses "a mistake in the light of the world we live in today".

HUL moves towards higher variable salary structure

2009-02-03T21:36:00.000-08:00

A higher proportion of the salaries of Hindustan Unilever (HUL) employees in 2009 will be variable pay as part of the company ‘s strategy to intensify performance-driven compensation and shift a large part of the costs from fixed to variable in an uncertain market scenario.

Concerned over the high volatility in business operations, the maker of brands like Lifebuoy, Surf, Dove and Ponds has begun implementing risk mitigation strategies like shorter response and planning cycles especially in relation to input costs, demand trends, inflation and interest rates.

“We see 2009 as an year of uncertainty and are trying to shift costs from fixed to variable and are structuring our compensation package to strengthen the performance culture. We are working on shorter horizons and gearing internal processes to manage things more dynamically to deliver competitive, profitable growth, even if the worst case scenario were to materialise. The idea is to remain flexible and not get committed too early, especially with costs,“ said managing director and CEO Nitin Paranjpe in an exclusive interview with ET.

The emphasis on stronger linkage between performance and pay began in 2006 when HUL moved away from a market-linked ESOPs programme to a performance-based share grant scheme. The company is now significantly increasing the proportion of variable pay in the overall compensation structure. The annual bonus to employees is now linked to sales growth, economic profit and individual contribution.

HUL has initiated a strategy, ‘War on waste’ and created special teams to identify and cut costs across the value chain, including travel, communication, consultancy, etc.

“This will help us to sharply cut costs and create enough headroom to invest in brands in a challenging market,” Mr Paranjpe said. The company is expected to plough back some of the benefits of lower costs to drive business competitiveness. HUL is changing its business strategy to one which is more flexible and responsive to short-term challenges.

HUL is also investing more in personal products where the company took a hit last year in market shares and volumes. The company had conceded market shares in personal products owing to what analysts said was HUL’s unpreparedness in a market that was changing in favour of top-end brands. The company has lately taken a series of measures to strengthen its presence in the premium end by investing in skincare, haircare and soaps brands like Dove and Ponds.

“Even in a tough year, our topline grew by 20% and we held our operating margins. We strengthened our position in the key categories of home care and foods. We were too soft in personal products. There are a couple of brands that need to be strengthened further; the competitive context continues to be intense but the key is to remain focused on the consumer and customer. Our plan is in place and much of it will unfold in 2009,” Mr Paranjpe said.

Mr Paranjpe, however, refuted analysts views that HUL was uptrading its portfolio away from mass markets. “The only way you can maintain such strong positions in a country like India is to straddle the consumer pyramid. While a large part of our consumers are moving into the affluence bracket, an equally large part are striving to be a part of the consuming community” he said.

HUL derives more than 50% of its sales from rural markets. Hindustan Unilever had posted a 12.7% rise in the fourth quarter underlying net profit and is hopeful that softening commodity prices bode well for its business. Last year, its mainstay soaps and detergents business was weighed down by a drop in volumes because of high input costs.

Layoffs Spread to More Sectors of the Economy

2009-01-29T20:56:00.000-08:00

World Job News-
Furloughs, wage reductions, hiring freezes and shorter hours simply did not do enough. A year into this recession, companies across the board are resorting to mass job cuts.

Home Depot, Caterpillar, Sprint Nextel and at least eight other companies announced on Monday they would cut more than 75,000 jobs in the United States and around the world — a gloomy start to the workweek for employees anxious about holding their own as the economy sinks. Caterpillar, the maker of heavy equipment, is slashing its payrolls by 16 percent. Texas Instruments said late in the day that it would eliminate 3,400 jobs, or 12 percent of its work force.

Jobs began disappearing in home building and mortgage operations early in the recession, then across finance and banking more generally. Now the ax is falling across large swaths of manufacturing, retailing and information technology, taking out workers from New York to Seattle. Just last week, Microsoft announced its first significant job cuts ever.

Because companies like Microsoft have invested in their workers’ skills and knowledge, they usually delay major work force reductions as long as they can. But with orders for new products and services drying up and financing tight, employers are looking to shrink their costs drastically and are slashing their payrolls, anticipating a protracted decline for business in 2009.

Monday’s parade of negative news comes after months of announcements from other prominent companies like Citigroup, General Electric, Nokia and Harley-Davidson. As part of its acquisition of Wyeth, Pfizer said it would cut the combined workforce by 19,500 employees.

On Wednesday, the tally of mass layoffs for December will be released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Already, the bureau says the United States economy has shed 2.55 million jobs since the recession began, pushing the unemployment rate up to 7.2 percent last month.

The latest round of job cuts — and the additional rounds likely to come as these move through the economy — mean more pain ahead for states as unemployment insurance claims rise and deplete state budgets.

Congress has proposed setting aside $43 billion to assist the states and to provide for new and current recipients of unemployment checks. That money is intended to increase the weekly benefit amounts; to extend how long people can collect payments; to cover more types of workers, like part-timers; and to help states distribute benefits more quickly.

It is based largely on an estimate that the unemployment rate will rise to 8 to 9 percent this year even with a stimulus package, according to the proposal summary from the House Appropriations Committee. But if unemployment soars into double digits, as some economists expect, the financing may not be enough.

“The economy is deteriorating at a faster clip than even the most dreary forecasts had expected,” said Joseph Brusuelas, an economist who, bucking the current job market trend, will soon start a new job at Moody’s Economy.com. “At the current trend, $43 billion will not be sufficient should we breach 9 percent unemployment and maybe reach into the double digits.”

President Obama cited the layoff announcements in remarks Monday urging Congress to approve an $825 billion economic stimulus package of tax cuts, emergency benefits and public spending projects. “These are not just numbers on a page,” he said. “As with the millions of jobs lost in 2008, these are working men and women whose families have been disrupted and whose dreams have been put on hold.”

Charles DiGisco, of Randolph, N.J., is one casualty of the downturn. He said he had been looking for work since Sept. 18, when he lost his job as a vice president for sales and marketing at Master Cutlery, a knife maker. He frequently hears a familiar refrain from would-be employers: “We would hire you, but we’re not hiring anybody.”

His family’s monthly expenses are four times what Mr. DiGisco collects from unemployment, and he said his family was selling two of its three cars and might dispose of some stocks or dip into retirement funds to keep paying the mortgage.

“It takes me 20 years to save it, and it takes me five months to go through it,” Mr. DiGisco said.

While stimulus spending on public works may take some time to get going, some companies could bring back displaced workers quickly if the government initiative generated new orders.

Caterpillar, for example, had announced buyouts, wage freezes and work stoppages around the holidays because of “a dramatic decline in orders,” said Jim Dugan, a spokesman for the company, based in Peoria, Ill.

On Monday, the company said that a total of 15,000 permanent and temporary jobs, out of about 125,000, would have been eliminated by the end of this week, and that it would trim 5,000 more by the end of the first quarter. Should orders for earthmovers and other heavy equipment improve, which some expect as countries around the world start building bridges, highways and other public works to help create jobs, Caterpillar can recall some workers quickly.

Many companies, though, may not rush to increase staffs even if business begins to pick up. Andrew Stettner, deputy director of the National Employment Law Project, said downturns often motivate companies to restructure business models permanently, meaning jobs they cut now are unlikely to be replaced.

“Structural change is put into overdrive because of the recession,” he said, “so who knows for sure how a company like Microsoft will fare?”

Sprint Nextel, which announced Monday that it was eliminating 8,000 jobs, or roughly 14 percent of its work force, is similarly facing some tough restructuring decisions as it continues to hemorrhage subscribers.

After a dismal holiday shopping season, retailers are letting employees go in droves. More than 66,600 retailing jobs were lost in December, the worst period since the late 1930s.

Home Depot, the home improvement retailer, said Monday it would cut 7,000 jobs, or 2 percent of its workers. Some 5,000 cuts will come through store closings, largely of its upscale Expo chain; the rest will come from corporate support, many at its Atlanta headquarters.

Carol B. Tomé, Home Depot’s chief financial officer, said the company had explored ways to save Expo, but “as we kept looking at alternatives, the business kept getting softer and softer.”

For most of last year, relatively healthy demand for exports gave global companies like Caterpillar a cushion. But with downturns deepening across Europe and Asia, and the dollar strengthening, global demand for costlier American goods has faltered.

“There really isn’t any hiding place for companies anymore,” said Nigel Gault, chief United States economist at IHS Global Insight. “The recent numbers coming in from the rest of the world are disastrous.”

Jack Healy, Stephanie Rosenbloom, Louis Uchitelle and Jenna Wortham contributed

STMicro to cut 4,500 jobs in 2009.

2009-01-27T21:38:00.000-08:00

PARIS: French-Italian semiconductor maker STMicroelectronics has said it will cut 4,500 jobs -- a tenth of its workforce -- as tries to respond to the global slowdown.

STMicro, ranked fifth among global chipmakers, registered a loss in 2008 of 786 million dollars (596 million euros) and said it would try to reduce its costs by 700 million dollars in 2009.

That includes cutting 4,500 jobs this year, and the closure of three factories in the United States and Morocco that had already been announced.

The company said sales fell by 17 percent in the final quarter of last year to 2.28 billion dollars, and that with the sharp decline in demand its factories would likely be operating at around 50 percent of their capacity in the first three months of this year.

IIT grads warm up to start-ups , NGOs

2009-01-27T21:35:00.000-08:00

IIT graduates might soon turn teachers, social workers or join start-ups , for want of better career opportunities in an increasingly bleak environment. Faced with a decline in job offers from major recruiters in the financial services and research space, students of IIT Madras (IITM) are warming up to openings in foreign universities, NGOs and start-ups .

In terms of job preference, IIT graduates typically have a penchant for investment banking, analytics, consultancy, core engineering and research. But companies such as Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, GE and Tower Research, major recruiters in these areas, did not visit campus this year.

“There has been a fall in the banking & finance sector. But the manufacturing sector is still holding fort,” said Lt Col (retd) Jayakumar, deputy registrar (training, placement and PR), IITM.

“We were in touch with companies in the financial space but a lot of them cancelled visit after the Lehman Brothers collapse. The number of intake per company has come down and most of them are still recruiting in small numbers to sustain the relationship with the institution. It’s the same situation across IITs,” added IITM’s academic affairs secretary Amit Garg.

A total of 1,061 students registered for placements this year, out of which 571 have been placed so far; 140 companies have visited the campus till now. “Last year, all students were placed after visits from 180 companies,” Mr Garg added. Salaries, on the other hand, remained at the same levels. The highest salary offer was made by Schlumberger, which offered to pay Rs 22 lakh per annum.

As placement prospects turn more uninviting, students are thinking of a number of options on the academic and professional side, to counter the downturn. “Many students who did not get placed in companies of their choice are going for higher studies . A lot of them are considering a masters in engineering or finance in the US,” Mr Garg said.

And those who are still keen on a job are looking at foreign universities, start-ups and NGOs, despite the great difference in salary packages offered by these institutions.

“Teaching positions will be taken up mostly by MTech and PhD holders. We are in touch with National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN) and NGOs. There will be a great difference in salary package, but that can’t be helped,” Mr Garg added. Foreign Universities such as Texas A&M University, Qatar and Alfaisal University, Saudi Arabia visited IITM this year to recruit students for teaching positions . The students are also hoping alumni members will pitch in with more companies and job offers . “We are in contact with alumni members, to tell them how they can participate in the placement process. A lot of them are keen,” Mr Garg said.

Indian H-1B visa techies in US may lose jobs in Microsoft

2009-01-27T21:32:00.000-08:00

Indian IT professionals working for Microsoft Corp in the US could be among those who lose jobs after it announced plans to sack 5,000 employees with the software giant indicating some of the affected would likely be non-Americans amid calls to first target foreigners working on H-1B visas.

The world's biggest software company has been asked by an influential Republican Senator from Iowa Chuck Grassley to first fire foreign workers hired on H-1B visas, a majority of whom are Indians, while implementing the layoff plan and "protect" the jobs of Americans.

An indication that foreigners who also include Indians could be targetted during the layoffs came when a Microsoft spokesperson in a statement said, "We care about all our employees, so we are providing services and support to try to help every affected worker, whether they are US workers or foreign nationals working in this country on a visa."

The company has been in the forefront for expanding the H-1B visa programme, a temporary visa programme that lets American companies and universities hire thousands of foreign workers in a category considered by the government requiring specialised skills.

Dashing off a letter to the company after it recentlly announced its intention to slash the workforce by 5,000 in the next 18 months, Grassley voiced concern that this would result in American workers losing jobs and not the foreigners hired on H-1B or L visas.

"During a layoff, companies should not be retaining H-1B or other work visa programme employees over qualified American workers," Grassley said in the letter to Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer.

Microsoft is one of the major beneficiaries of H-1B work visa programme, which is mainly for overseas professionals. A majority of the 60,000 professionals given H-1B visa every year are from India.

LIC to add 11 lakh more agents by March 2011.

2009-01-27T21:31:00.000-08:00

At a time when companies are trimming their workforce, insurance giant LIC on Monday said it would employ 11 lakh more agents by March 2011 to double its field workforce.

“They (private insurers) are talking about 30,000. We are talking about 11-12 lakh and that is the difference. (In) three years, we want to double the number of agents,” LIC chairman TS Vijayan said, while discussing the comparison with private sector competitors in terms of hiring plans.

“We don’t talk about thousands. We talk about lakhs. Last year, we ended with 11 lakh plus agents and we would like to increase it by a minimum 25% by March, 2009. This is a target we have taken ourselves and I think we will be able to do it,” he said.

During the current year, the country’s largest insurer recruited about two lakh insurance agents across the length and breadth of the country.

This excludes hiring plans for development officers, he clarified, saying that during the current financial year alone, LIC has recruited 4,500 officers and the next year, the number could go up by up to 5,000. Currently, LIC has about 24,000 development officers across the country.

To compete with LIC, private life insurers are also recruiting agents to expand their businesses and reach, but the numbers are smaller. For example, Reliance Life is in the process of adding 90,000 agents and 2,500 managers, while Metlife and Max New York Life would increase advisors’ strength by 30,000 agents by the end of the current fiscal.

Asked whether recruitment of high-profile agents by a private insurer deters the insurance giant, Vijayan said, “we have a large number of high-profile agents.” Union railway minister Lalu Yadav’s daughter is an agent with LIC, he said, adding, “they (high profile agents) usually operate in their own circle. Ordinary people may not know he or she is an agent.”

He admitted that such high profile agents bring good business to the public sector insurance player. He also said many prominent personalities had been LIC agents during early days of their career.

LIC is also planning to elevate the status of their agents akin to bank business correspondent, Mr Vijayan added.

“Bank are now having banking correspondents we would like to elevate the status of agents to that of correspondents who can collect premium,” he said.

Get ready to march past the job blues, literally

2009-01-27T21:30:00.000-08:00

Even as jobs thin out across sectors in due to global economic slowdown, the central para-military forces (CPMFs) may just be the right
career choice for those looking to join the Forces. Seemingly untouched by recession, the Central forces—BSF, CRPF, ITBP, CISF, SSB and NSG—are going in for a major expansion with the sanctioning of an additional 127 battalions, putting nearly 1.4 lakh jobs up for grabs in the immediate future.

In an exercise to strengthen the security apparatus post 26/11, the Union home ministry has put the reinforcement in numbers of various Central para-military forces on the fast track. In a recent decision, the ministry sanctioned 29 more battalions for the Border Security Force (BSF), 37 battalions for the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), 37 for the Sashastra Seema Bal or SSB (which will be raised in two phases starting first with 20 battalions); 10 each for Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP); and four battalions for the National Security Guard (NSG).

This adds up to a total 127 battalions, which are likely to be raised over the next 2-3 years. With each battalion roughly comprising 1,100 personnel, the total number of security personnel to be inducted into these CPMFs works out to nearly 1.4 lakh.

While the BSF is looking to utilise the additional battalions to raise its presence on the eastern border with Bangladesh, the CRPF hopes to add on to its specialised anti-Naxal Cobra battalions. The SSB, which is now only 41-battalion strong, is finding it difficult to effectively guard the Indo-Nepal border with the inadequate manpower. The additional 37 battalions will boost its presence on both the Indo-Nepal as well as the Indo-China border in Sikkim.

The CISF, too, is badly in need to augment its manpower in the wake of the additional responsibilities being included in its portfolio, such as guarding private and joint sector installations. The NSG, too, is in the midst of, expanding to regional hubs, starting with the four cities of Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai and Kolkata. The new battalions will generate the required manpower needed for these hubs.

At present, the CRPF comprises a total 201 battalions, the BSF 157 battalions, SSB 41 battalions and the ITBP 45 battalions. The additional battalions will take up the strength of the CRPF to 211 battalions, that of the BSF to 186 battalions, that of SSB to 78 battalions and of ITBP to 55 battalions.

MBA is best investment during recession: Execs

2009-01-21T10:48:00.001-08:00

Rohit Raghav, in his mid-thirties , says it’s time he go back to the classroom. Working with a multinational company at Faridabad near
Delhi, Raghav had been waiting and saving up for this moment. He was selected for the executive management programme (PGPX) at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A ) in 2007, but had deferred it by a year.

But now, with the slowdown taking the sting out of the market, Raghav thinks there couldn’t have been a better time to return to school. “When I graduate in 2010, I will get an opportunity to work for an industry that would be on the growth path,” says Raghav, who has worked for seven years abroad, including in the US and China.

IIM-A , like many of its peers, has allowed selected candidates to postpone their joining dates for its executive management programme by up to a year.

But, with the economic slowdown getting worse, slowing economy and hazy career prospects, institutes say requests from candidates to avail this facility have come down sharply.

At IIM-A for instance, the number of candidates seeking to postpone their joining dates for executive management programmes fell to eight this year compared with 20 last year. And applications from midcareer professionals seeking to return to school have gone up considerably.

“This is the time for mid-career executives to get back to the campus, so that they can join back the corporate world with more value additions,” says Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad’s PGPX programme chairman Arvind Sahay. The institute recently completed admission process for the fourth batch.

The situation at IIM-A is mirrored at several top management schools across the country, most of which are reporting a 15-20 % increase in applications for executive management programmes.

“I had applied for the course, got selected, but was not sure of joining it. However, given the current economic scenario, I think the time is right to get a degree and enhance my career prospects,” says Anindita Roy, who worked for IBM as an IT consultant. She plans to join IIM Calcutta’s one-year executive programme in April. Concurs Malay Bhattacharyya, course chairman of IIM Bangalore’s executive MBA programme : “Executives are finding it an opportunity to take a break from work and get back to school.”

The Indian School of Business (ISB) in Hyderabad, which is in the process of finalising the admission process for a new batch of its flagship one-year executive MBA, has seen a 20-25 % surge in the number of applications for the course.
“This is a huge jump, and the main reason is the new-found interest among executives to join a one-year course during recession ,” ISB admissions director VK Menon told ET.

Experts feel the MBA programme, or for that matter any academic programme, can be a good investment in a bad economy.
“The economy is also expected to turn around during the time-frame of the programme ,” says Guruprasad Sarvothaman, a US-based management education consultant , adding that the ‘opportunity cost’ of leaving work to go into education was ‘lower than normal’ now.

Sun Micro to cut jobs here, rework business strategy

2009-01-21T10:46:00.000-08:00

Santa Clara-based $13.88-billion Sun Microsystems will lay-off staff in India, as part of its plan to cut 6,000 jobs globally. The company
employs some 33,423 people world-wide. While the company is yet to decide the exact number of job cuts in India, it has no plans for fresh hiring this year.

The company, which operates in more than 100 countries, employs some 1,300 people in India. “The number of job cuts in India will be minimal as the country is projected as one of the emerging markets, along with Brazil, Russia and China. Fresh hiring will hardly be there. We may look at some sporadic hiring as and when required,” Sun Microsystems India vice-president & MD Anil Valluri told ET.

In India, the company is also reorienting its business strategy to earn better revenues during this ongoing recessionary period. “Our focus is now more on public sector units, as there is hardly any cost-cutting in the government sector. Earlier, PSUs contributed some 20-25% of our revenues and the rest came from the private sector. But, in 2009, we expect some 40-45% of our revenues to come from PSUs,” said Mr Valluri.

Incidentally, some of the leading PSU clients of Sun Micro are Punjab National Bank, Vijaya Bank, Dena Bank and others in the banking sector. “The telecom sector is also adding subscribers and, therefore, there is business being generated, too. Public sector telecom giants, BSNL and MTNL, are two major sources of business for us,” he added.

Sun Microsystems is also taking steps to help its customers to tide over the impending liquidity crisis, which in turn will help the company to retain them. “We are extending credit terms for our valued customers. We are also helping them by arranging leasing and financing in this hour of crisis. Open source products are also being offered to our clients to simplify the way the customers manage their storage and save costs at the same time,” the Sun Microsystems India MD said.

While cost-saving for its clients is high on the agenda of Sun Microsystems, the company has also undertaken some cost-cutting exercise internally. “We are reducing our sponsored events, renegotiating tariffs with hotels for our executives and re-looking at travel costs. We are also beefing up our tele-sales activities to bring down cost significantly,” he added.

British plans to ban overseas job ads may hit Indian jobseekers

2009-01-21T10:44:00.001-08:00

British employers are to be banned from advertising their jobs outside Europe in a step aimed at preserving jobs for British workers.

The ban, which can be pushed through without parliamentary approval, is aimed at safeguarding jobs for Britons during the current economic downturn.

If enforced, the move may hit Indian skilled migrants in a variety of sectors. Many skilled Indian workers are already being kept out by a points based system that has introduced tight new conditions for non-Europeans to migrate to Britain for employment.

While half a million jobs are currently waiting to be filled, figures set to be published this week are expected to show joblessness in Britain has touched the two million figure.

Home Minister Jacqui Smith said Sunday: "At a time when people are worried about losing their jobs, and therefore worried about being able to get quickly back into another job, it's even more important that we can say and show that when jobs become available, it's British people who get the first crack of the whip of taking those jobs.

"We need to be very sure that a job is being actively marketed for a worker who is already here and who needs that job before we assume that migration is the only way we can fill those skill shortages."

The British home ministry says 80,000 British jobs were advertised to workers from outside the European Union last year.

Ministers believe that the ban on ads will curb the number of migrants coming to Britain, because migrants will be unable to obtain a work visa from the UK Border Agency without having a specific job offer, The Times reported Monday.

This is said to be the first significant step towards fulfilling Gordon Brown's controversial promise - made after becoming Prime Minister in 2007 - to keep "British jobs for British workers".

Although employers are obliged to advertise jobs for up to two weeks in Britain before looking overseas, some employers advertise jobs in obscure trade journals or in newsagents' windows, which are seen by very few Britons.

The change, which can be made without parliamentary approval under provisions in the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act, will force these jobs to appear at local job centres.

UK may shut its doors on foreign professionals

2009-01-21T10:44:00.000-08:00

Britain is planning to ban advertising jobs overseas due to economic meltdown, a process which could hit Indian professionals aspiring for employment opportunities in the UK.

The government is mulling an idea to ensure that existing jobs go to British workers. The employers are being forced to notify vacancies in employment agencies within Britain to prioritise local candidates.

Indians are among the largest foreign professionals working in Britain. Every day, thousands of jobs are being cut across the sectors in Britain. Official figures suggest that unemployment figure is reaching the 2 million mark, for the first time since the mid-1990s.

Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, has announced plans to force thousands of nursing, primary teaching, hotel management and other "skilled migrant" jobs to be advertised in employment agencies such as Jobcentre Plus. Smith said "when it comes to immigration, in difficult economic times, I believe we need a tough system that offers British workers the first crack of the whip for jobs here".

Companies that break the new rules could have their licence to employ non-European Union migrants revoked.

Officials believe that the change will curb the number of migrants coming to Britain because they will not be able to obtain a work visa without a specific job offer. Official figures show that immigrants have taken four out of every five new jobs in Britain since 1997.

The Office for National Statistics says that there are currently 5,62,000 unfilled vacancies in the British economy.

Govt to minimise job losses: Kamal Nath

2009-01-21T10:41:00.000-08:00

Commerce and industry minister Kamal Nath has said that the government is prepared to take steps to minimise job-losses taking place in export-oriented sectors.

Speaking to the media at the CII Partnership Summit on Tuesday, the minister said that the job-loss situation will be analysed in the meeting the commerce department was holding with various export groups and industry sectors on Wednesday.

"Job losses are a matter of concern. We are meeting exporters tomorrow and will analyse the causes and then see what needs to be done," Mr Nath said.

According to estimates made by export body Fieo, up to 10 million jobs could be lost in the export sector by March-end if specific steps to bail out exporters is not taken.

India's exports has registering a negative growth in the last three months of calendar year 2008 mainly due to credit squeeze and drying up of orders in the Western markets.

World Bank bans 7 Indian companies so far...

2009-01-13T23:03:00.000-08:00

Satyam, and now, Wipro Technologies and Megasoft, join the 300 companies that have been blacklisted by the World Bank since 2000. The More Pictures
list includes four other India-based vendors.

GAP International (India), a corporate training firm, and an individual Surendra Singh whose identity could not be verified, have been permanently barred since 2001. The Bank banned Nestor Pharmaceuticals in 2007 until 2010, and Pune-based Pure Pharma until 2007.

IT companies came under the Bank radar as its procurement policy of 2006 included "allotment of shares" as grounds for imposing bans. The others have been banned for alleged malpractices in the tendering process.

"Wipro should have known that awarding shares to the staff while working with the Bank is against its regulations. However, the ban was imposed only after the policy came into effect in 2006," a World Bank spokesman told ET.

According to IT industry sources, the total value of World Bank's outsourcing business given to Indian companies annually is around $25 million. TCS is its largest vendor in India and the company also provides back-up to the Bank's back-office in Chennai.

"After Wipro and Satyam's ban, all the contracts handled by them were awarded to us," said a TCS official, who asked not to be named.

When contacted, a TCS spokesman declined to comment. However, the World Bank spokesman confirmed that TCS is one of its IT vendors, without disclosing the size of the contract.

The World Bank spokesman said: "In 2000, when the request for proposal (RFP) was given to us by Wipro we categorically asked them if they had awarded any shares to World Bank officials. Wipro had denied it then. World Bank has always asked prospective vendors to disclose any such allotment of shares as we do not favour awarding contracts to those who have given shares to our officials."

However, industry players say that offering shares for business is a common strategy to procure business. "It's an excellent business strategy whereby you need not forego your current cash flows. We have been following this strategy with clients but only at the corporate level as our biggest asset is ethics. It's also a very good strategy for startups," said KS Ananthanarayan, CFO Birlasoft.

``Under the US Securities & Exchange Commission laws, American Depository Receipts (ADRs) can be given to customers. Though World Bank could have its own internal policies and practices on such issues (ADRs) and other business conditions (like pricing adopted, detection of fraud etc), hence the bans,'' said a Gurgaon-based BPO company CEO, who asked not to be named.

Infosys to hire 27,000 by March

2009-01-13T22:16:00.000-08:00

Infosys Technologies said it will hire around 27,000 professionals by March this year, up from around 25,000 annual hiring the firm had
projected earlier.

For the third quarter ending December 31, 2008, Infosys had made a gross addition of 5,997 with the net intake being 2,772.

“We will be honouring every offer that we have made, in fact for the incoming freshers, we have sent letters telling them what period they would be joining,” said Infosys HR head TV Mohandas Pai . The firm has made offers to around 20,000 engineering graduates for the next year. The attrition rate for Infosys has come down to 11.8% at the end of Q3 as against 12.8% during the September quarter.

“The tolerance for non-performance has come down to zero,” he added. The IT major also said, the BPO number addition has dipped at the end of the third quarter, with the total headcount number standing at 16,941 as against 17,327 at the end of the second quarter.

Vivek Paul Quits TPG; Will He Be the Next CEO of Satyam?

2009-01-13T22:02:00.000-08:00

Paul's name is doing the rounds as next CEO of the embattled software services company Satyam Computer Services.

Vivek Paul has quit Texas Pacific Group or TPG, one of the world's largest private equity firms with $50 billion under management. Paul reportedly quit the firm, where he was a partner, in late December.

Now Paul's name is doing the rounds as next CEO of the embattled software services company Satyam Computer Services. The market rumour is also that Paul would be interested in buying a stake in Satyam from institutions. None of this could be independently verified nor Paul could be contacted for his comments.

Paul, 50, has an impeccable record as a business manager. He joined Wipro in 1999, and is credited to have led the company from $150 million in revenues to a billion dollar giant in about six years. He left Wipro as vice chairman in 2005 to join private equity firm TPG.

Paul, a BITS Pilani graduate and an MBA from University of Massachusetts, has also run GE's Global Computerized Tomography business, reporting directly to the current Chairman of GE, according to a Wikipedia entry of his bio. Paul also served as the CEO of GE's medical equipment joint venture in India. He has also spent time at consulting firm Bain & Co. and at PepsiCo

However, it remains to be seen if Paul would be interested in taking up the CEO's job in what was supposedly called India's fourth largest software exporter. Paul has been there and done that as a head of a company. His shift to a private equity firm signified that.

In a 2005 exit interview to The Financial Express, Paul has said that his innings as an employee is over. "My innings as an employee is over. It’s a completely different area. It’s like going from an actor to a producer. It’s an area where certain skills you acquired as an actor will be useful. But it’s a new twist in the road of life for me."

Colleges may chuck out Satyam from ‘job mela’

2009-01-12T00:54:00.000-08:00

With recruitment season starting at many engineering colleges and universities in the state in the next few weeks, many institutes are
reportedly not interested in including Satyam in the list of prospective employers for fear of an insecure future for their students.

The Andhra Pradesh State Council of Higher Education (APSCHE) is also reportedly under pressure from state universities to remove Satyam’s name from its recruitment drive for the current year.

“Joining the company, especially during the time of recession, and with bad press it will be fateful for students. The college has a responsibility to place students well. We cannot take risk with their lives and send them to Satyam,” principal of a college said.

The college authorities said there was a popular opinion among students that they would not opt for Satyam with the current situation .

At another college in the city, Satyam is already out of the list of recruiters. “With many final year students passing out this summer, there will be no Satyam employee from this college for 2009,” a lecturer said. Incidentally, at one of the colleges, the Parent-Teachers ’ Association (PTA) has ousted Satyam from the probable employers’ list. The college authorities said that there was tremendous pressure on them from parents. “The parents do not want their children to take wrong decisions at the start of the career. At the PTA meeting on January 7, some parents expressed their concern about including Satyam in the employer list and we had to oblige,” a college authority said.

However, most institutes said Satyam was being chucked out of the list not due to any bad press it had received of late, but because of its track record.

“The company had not given joining dates for students even after offering jobs a year ago. It has not honoured its word for the second consecutive year,” a placement officer said.

He said some other companies were removed from the employer list as well as they too had done this the previous year.

Ensuring continuity of Satyam's business our priority: Karnik

2009-01-12T00:50:00.001-08:00

Former Nasscom president Kiran Karnik, who has been appointed by the government on the board of Satyam Computer Services, says the new three-member board's priorities would be to ensure stability and business continuity at the IT services firm.

Prior to joining Nasscom in 2001, Mr Karnik headed Discovery Networks in India. A Padma Shri recipient, he also worked with the Indian Space Research Organisation for over 20 years.

What is going to be the agenda of the first meeting of the new board?

I have no idea. I need to speak with the other board members. We still need to co-ordinate where and when to meet. The effort will be to meet soon. The main priorities will be to ensure stability and business continuity for the customers and the employees. We need to build confidence and see what needs to be done for that.

We don't know what the status on the ground is at Satyam. So, we will be investigating what the company's position is with regards to cash, employees and the legal cases. We have to let the investigations go on and also ensure that the operations continue and the customers and employees have confidence.

What will be your role in the ongoing investigations?

The Company Law Board and the Serious Frauds Office are carrying on investigations. We will see what we can do to assist them.

What role do you see of the existing management going forward?

We have to determine our position with regards to the existing management. We have to see how we work with them and also find out if there are people who were involved in the financial fraud.

When will the other board members be appointed?

It's very early to comment on this. I have not received any communication from the government on this matter.

Big clients plan to exit Satyam

2009-01-12T00:47:00.000-08:00

Major clients of Satyam Computer Services, such as General Electric (GE), Nestle and British Petroleum, have started exploring alternative options such as moving work to other outsourcing vendors.

GE, the largest client for Satyam, is learnt to be evaluating options of inducting the Satyam team working on its IT project or convincing other IT vendors to merge this team with their resources to ensure continuity of work. A source familiar with the matter said talks are on with other outsourcing vendors. Satyam’s bigger rival Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) already provides services to GE.

Replying to an e-mail questionnaire, a GE spokesman said the company has no comment to offer.

Nestle, the world’s largest food company, has been a Satyam client since 2004. In 2007, it extended its engagement with the Indian IT firm for another three years, landing it a new multi-million dollar contract. The Switzerland-based company says Satyam has guaranteed it normal continuation of services and it also has robust internal resources to provide it necessary IT support. However, it is not resting assured. “Alternative solutions are being considered and no disruption of Nestlé’s IT operations is expected,” a Nestle spokesman said in an e-mail.

Outsourcing analysts say clients are worried about continuity of their work being handled at Satyam where employees are looking for another job. “Clients are evaluating options as their business continuity is at risk. Other suppliers are also working overtime to poach some of these marquee clients,” sourcing advisory firm Everest principal Nikhil Rajpal said.

Satyam’s clients such as British Petroleum have sought assurance from the Indian IT firm that their work will not be impacted. “We are seeking further information and assurance from Satyam that our services will not be impacted by the situation. We will also prudently consider what other actions may be needed in order to best safeguard our systems,” BP group media director David Nicholas said in an e-mail.

While Indian vendors such as TCS, Infosys and Wipro could bag more work from Satyam’s customers, analysts say multinational outsourcing firms such as IBM and Accenture could use the financial scam at the Indian firm to their advantage. “We don’t rule out the possibility of MNC competition playing Satyam’s fiasco as a selling point against the offshore Indian players,” brokerage firm Emkay Global Financial Services said in a note.

Corporates in India capping fresh hiring: FICCI

2009-01-12T00:44:00.000-08:00

With India's business confidence sinking to a seven-year low and the situation expected to worsen in the next six months, majority of the Coming to terms with lay-off
Crisis time: Keep staff motivated
corporates covered in an industry survey said they are capping fresh hiring.

Close to 88 per cent of 412 firms surveyed by FICCI between November and December this fiscal said that the economic situation has deteriorated over the last six months.

Further, 52 per cent feel that the overall economic conditions would "weaken further in the coming six months".

As the overall Business Confidence Index dipped to a seven-year low of 37.8 in the second quarter of the fiscal, from about 70 in 2002-03, industry body FICCI Business Confidence Survey said.

The axe has already started on the casual workers. "About 57 per cent of the companies have reported that to bring down costs, they are reducing the number of casual workers," it said.

With exporters facing cancellation of orders and majority of the companies putting brakes on fresh hiring "there is a sense of gloom in corporate boardrooms", the chamber said.

"As many as 68 per cent of those surveyed have decided or are looking at the policy not to fill up vacancies for the time-being," the survey said.

Easy credit remains a key issue for India Inc. About 70 per cent of the firms have reported that banks have yet not eased credit disbursal norms despite a slew of measures announced by the Reserve Bank, the chamber said.

It said prospects for the key business parameters like sales, profits, investments, selling price, exports and employment look "very bleak".

Satyam may axe 10,000 employees next month: Headhunters

2009-01-12T00:43:00.000-08:00

With a big questions mark on its cash position and a minimum outgo on salary estimated at Rs 500 crore a month, Satyam may lay off over Satyam employees unsure
10,000 employees next month, says a recruitment firm.

"It is most likely that Satyam will cut 10,000 jobs next month as the company is left with no cash to pay the salaries. The current fiasco is likely to put pressure on salaries, which may reduce by 10 per cent due to the surplus of about 20,000 people in the jobs market," Headhunters India CEO Kris Lakshmikanth said.

Satyam interim CEO Ram Mynampati while admitting that the cash position is not encouraging, the company, however, has taken care of salary for December.

Lakshmikanth said till Tuesday evening there were about 7,800 people from Satyam who had posted their resumes on job sites and by Wednesday afternoon, it has gone up to 14,000.

The uncertainty about jobs is killingly painful for the 53,000 employees of Satyam, especially when the industry is going slow on recruitment.

Further, possibility of a takeover too looks distant as the accounting fraud done by the company would make it difficult for any firm to evaluate its correct market value, which is compounding the worries of the employees.

IT-BPO union Unites Professionals general secretary Karthik Shekhar said, "In case of any lay off at Satyam, we may take legal action."

"We have received over 7,000 hits since the news break. Yesterday, in one hour we have seen over 800 hits (no of people visiting the site) from Hyderabad. People have been enquiries on how the union can help them," Shekhar added.

Don't poach Satyamites: NASSCOM

2009-01-12T00:41:00.000-08:00

Expressing solidarity with the new management team of the Satyam, IT industry body NASSCOM today said it has asked its recruitment team
not to poach anybody from Satyam.

“As of now, the priority of NASSCOM is business continuity. The company is in the middle of a crisis . All the employees have been working on projects. To continue the projects they need people,” a top NASSCOM official said.

The priority now is to see that business continues for Satyam.

“We will ensure that customers and other stakeholders get the right perspective. We will work with the Satyam Task Force to reach out to their customers and employees and guide them through the transition,” NASSCOM chairman Ganesh Natarajan said. Infosys had made it clear that to refrain from hiring Satyam employees.

Satyam Computers chairman admits books cooked for years

2009-01-09T04:20:00.000-08:00

Satyam Computers chairman admits books cooked for years

The chairman of India's Satyam Computer Services Ltd. quit Wednesday after admitting the company's profits had been doctored for several years, shaking faith in the country's corporate giants as shares of the software services provider plunged nearly 80 per cent.

The company's balance sheet — riddled with "fictitious" assets and "non-existent" cash — contained a $1 billion US hole that could no longer be concealed after a deal intended to save the struggling company was scuppered, chairman B. Ramalinga Raju said in a letter to the board.

"Every attempt made to eliminate the gap failed," said Raju, 53. "It was like riding a tiger, not knowing how to get off without being eaten."

B. Rama Raju, managing director of Satyam Computer and the chairman's brother, also quit.

News of the fraud dragged down the benchmark Sensex stock index 7.3 per cent to 9,586.88 with Satyam's shares plummeting nearly 78 per cent to 40 rupees. The accounting scandal raises questions about the quality of corporate governance in India and is likely to reverberate around the region.

Satyam, which means "truth" in India's ancient Sanskrit language, had "inflated profits over a period of (the) last several years," Raju said in his letter, which was released to the Bombay Stock Exchange.

For the July-September quarter alone, operating profit of $133.4 million had been overstated by almost 11 times the actual result.

Rajeev Sampat, an independent analyst, said the amount and nature of the fraud had shocked investors.

"It is one of the biggest frauds the Indian capital market has seen. People have been taken by surprise by the gravity of the event," he said. "After overstating profit and understating debt, the company's net worth is zero."

Raju said that none of the other board members had any knowledge of the company's real financial situation and apologized to all stakeholders in his letter, claiming that he had not benefitted from the doctored results.

"Neither me, nor the managing director took even one rupee/dollar from the company and have not benefited in financial terms on account of the inflated results," he said.

The son of a grape farmer in India's southern Andhra Pradesh state, Raju founded Satyam in 1987 and over the last two decades the company became India's fourth-largest software services company. A key player in the Indian outsourcing industry, the company is listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

After getting a business degree from Ohio University, Raju first started a weaving mill and then ventured into real estate before diversifying into the software services industry.

The financial troubles at Hyderabad-based Satyam started becoming public last month when outraged investors forced the company to call off a $1.6-billion acquisition of two construction firms, both partly owned by Satyam's founders, including Raju and his family.

Compounding Satyam's problems, the World Bank last month barred the company from receiving direct contracts from the bank for eight years for what the lender said were inappropriate business practices.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India, the market regulator, said it was investigating.

"We have to go beyond this letter and find out what actually has happened," SEBI chief C.B. Bhave told reporters. "This is an issue which has very serious implications. It involves the Companies Act and the violation of the listing agreement with SEBI. It also raises the issue of authenticity of accounts that have been audited and certified by the auditors."

PSU jobs back in fashion

2009-01-09T04:16:00.000-08:00

PSU jobs back in fashion:::

From hiring in full swing to giving ESOPs to employees (a very recent trend), most PSU firms are offering excellent career opportunities even in the current downtrend. What’s more interesting is the fact that this trend is not confined to any one sector.

PSU firms across sectors – banking, insurance, petroleum & energy are on a hiring spree, undeterred by the global recession. “Stability and robustness of organisations is an area where the PSUs score even in such times of crisis,” comments Pramod Sadarjoshi, executive director, HRD, IDBI Bank. “The PSUs are on a growth path, especially in terms of expanding talent pool,” - Pramod Sadarjoshi, executive director, HRD, IDBI Bank.

Citing her firm’s case, Dipti Sanzgiri, executive director (HRD), Bharat Petroleum says, “We have certain projects which we go ahead with regardless of the market conditions.” Given that, it becomes imperative for these firms to build their talent pipeline.

“The PSUs are on a growth path, especially in terms of expanding talent pool,” confirms Sadarjoshi. “This is a great time to expand, to consolidate and really build the ‘bench-strength ’ of the ‘best and brightest’ talent,” adds Sadarjoshi.

Job-cuts in private firms are turning out to be a blessing in disguise. It is clearly a win-win situation for the PSUs having the ‘appetite’ to absorb good people, and for good people who are wanting to be part of more stable, assured ‘career-zones’ . “What is also giving impetus to this trend is that PSUs like IDBI Bank are competing in the marketplace by becoming nimble-footed , efficient and progressive,” reasons Sadarjoshi.

Life Insurance Corporation (India’s largest Insurer) is reportedly planning to hire 45,000 this fiscal. Similarly, State Bank of India is reportedly planning to hire about 25,000 by the fiscal-end . Bharat Petroleum which has hired over 70 people in the last quarter too has aggressive hiring plans. “We’ll hire 20-30 in the next quarter for roles of Sales or engineering officers,” informs Sanzgiri.

However, hiring is just one part of the PSU growth story. The other part is the pro-active measures these public sector firms are undertaking to retain their talent.

IDBI is one such example of a PSU that is taking many steps to retain employees including giving ESOPs. “Apart from it becoming a major wealthcreating option, ESOPs, inherently bring in the concept of accountability,” Sadarjoshi points out. “This in turn promotes ownership for excellence, and a direct and tangible equation between performance culture and shareholder value,” he explains further.

All these factors are leading many to look at PSUs with a renewed interest including those in the private sector. “Many want to have a fulfilling, balanced career which the PSUs provide, and hence there is a plenty of interest in the private sector employees to explore opportunities in PSUs,” opines Sadarjoshi. “We certainly are enjoying a plethora of interest on part of the talentpool in the market. While I cannot put a percentage, I must say it is very encouraging,” he adds.

So, in a nutshell, PSUs are today having the DNA which comprises the ‘best of both worlds’. Thus, there’s a paradigm shift in the way Indian workforce is looking at PSU jobs. Many are embracing work opportunities in these firms with a new enthusiasm.

Satyam may axe 10,000 employees next month: Headhunters

2009-01-09T04:08:00.000-08:00

With a big questions mark on its cash position and a minimum outgo on salary estimated at Rs 500 crore a month, Satyam may lay off over Employees unsure
10,000 employees next month, says a recruitment firm.

"It is most likely that Satyam will cut 10,000 jobs next month as the company is left with no cash to pay the salaries. The current fiasco is likely to put pressure on salaries, which may reduce by 10 per cent due to the surplus of about 20,000 people in the jobs market," Headhunters India CEO Kris Lakshmikanth said.

Satyam interim CEO Ram Mynampati while admitting that the cash position is not encouraging, the company, however, has taken care of salary for December.

Lakshmikanth said till Tuesday evening there were about 7,800 people from Satyam who had posted their resumes on job sites and by Wednesday afternoon, it has gone up to 14,000.

The uncertainty about jobs is killingly painful for the 53,000 employees of Satyam, especially when the industry is going slow on recruitment.

Further, possibility of a takeover too looks distant as the accounting fraud done by the company would make it difficult for any firm to evaluate its correct market value, which is compounding the worries of the employees.

IT-BPO union Unites Professionals general secretary Karthik Shekhar said, "In case of any lay off at Satyam, we may take legal action."

"We have received over 7,000 hits since the news break. Yesterday, in one hour we have seen over 800 hits (no of people visiting the site) from Hyderabad. People have been enquiries on how the union can help them," Shekhar added.

Microsoft may cut 15,000 jobs this month: Report

2009-01-04T22:54:00.001-08:00

Microsoft may cut 15,000 jobs this month: Report

LONDON: The world's top software firm, Microsoft, is planning a massive reduction in its workforce where up to 15,000 jobs may be axed this month, says a media report.

"Microsoft is preparing to announce the first wide scale layoffs in its 32-year history, with up to 15,000 jobs at risk, according to some predictions," The Times said in a report published online.

Speculation about job cuts was triggered by a report by Fudzilla, a technology blog site, which said employees were told that the software group was preparing for major layoffs from its global operations on January 15, it added.

Earlier, a brokerage firm Oppenheimer & Co's analyst Brad Reback had asked Microsoft to cut its workforce by 10 per cent or about 9,100 employees.

"Such layoff exercise "would be a healthy move for the company," Reback added. Microsoft had close to 91,000 employees on its payrolls at end of July-September quarter.

Further, The Times report stated that the news of job losses came amid the company being forced to apologise for an embarrassing hiccup with its Zune digital music player.

A bug in the device's internal clock in the original 30-gigabyte version failed to cope with the last day of the leap year and thousands of owners were left with a frozen screen on December 31.

The report quoted Microsoft statement as saying, "the issue should be resolved over the next 24 hours as the time change moves to January 1, 2009. We expect the internal clock on the Zune 30 GB devices will automatically reset."

Besides, Microsoft is scheduled to release its second quarter results for the fiscal year 2008-09 on January 22.

Battling the economic crisis, companies in their bid to save costs, have announced over one lakh job cuts in December in the US.

Senior, mid-level staff eye options outside Satyam

2008-12-31T03:17:00.000-08:00

The shakeout in Satyam isn’t restricted to its board alone. A significant percentage of the Hyderabad-based IT major’s senior officials
is also on the lookout for new job opportunities.

Headhunters told that several employees from Satyam have approached them to explore options in other IT firms. These include heads of verticals — who are part of the company’s senior management team — and mid-level managers. “We have received a number of calls in the past few days and resumes have not stopped floating in since the Maytas buyout was called off. We have already received more than 100 such CVs so far,” said Head Hunters India CEO Kris Lakshmikanth.

“One cannot rule out the possibility that the top management in Satyam is unhappy over how the entire controversial takeover was handled — or mis-handled — which is posing a lot of problems in dealing with clients right now. If matters get worse and there is any major change in leadership, as many as 2-5% of its employees will soon be looking out for jobs,” said a Mumbai-based headhunter, who did not wish to be named.

A senior company executive, with a customer-facing role, recently confessed to the headhunter that he was facing difficulty dealing with clients and convincing them to renew their contracts with Satyam. The clients are in re-evaluation mood as they are “no longer satisfied with the intent and focus of the company.”

When asked if other IT companies would be willing to employ Satyam brass in the current market scenario, he said: “Those who are performers and have the right talent will get good opportunities. Those who specialise in certain verticals will get preference.” However, he added that finding a job would not be easy for everyone. “It will take a few months before one actually sees employee movement from Satyam to other companies.”

Satyam witnessed stakeholders’ revolt after it announced the acquisition of Maytas Properties and Maytas Infrastructure, two promoter family-led firms. It not only raised a number of questions to which the Satyam board could not give satisfactory answers, but triggered queries on the corporate governance as well. As a result, the company is now in the middle of a spate of boardroom exits.

KPIT staff sent on compulsory leave without pay

2008-12-31T03:07:00.000-08:00

KPIT staff sent on compulsory leave without pay

PUNE: The cheer traditionally associated with the festive season at this time of the year is missing in many IT companies. Local companies are feeling the heat of the economic slowdown in the West where companies and their employees are taking longer-than usual holidays.

Technology solutions provider KPIT Cummins Infosystems is one of these. It has sent some employees on compulsory leave and is weighing a salary cut for all employees next year. Sending employees on leave without pay is an effort to reduce operational costs. While a company spokesperson said there was no compulsion in sending employees on leave, some employees told us: “We have been told to go on a fortnight’s leave without pay,” thus indicating the compulsion behind the leave.

These employees added that they have been told the ‘bench’, which is a group of employees reserved for emergency work, would be reduced next year because revenues from clients has fallen.

The company spokesperson said, “We are restructuring the business because of the global recession. We are working out how to reduce operational costs in order to sustain the business if conditions worsen in the next few months. The only step we have taken regarding employees is warning them of the possibility of a reduction in the variable pay, although a decision on this has not yet been taken. There are no plans to reduce the number of employees.”

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→ Asia tech firms cut costs with forced leave for workers

The Pune-based KPIT had a market cap of Rs 210.20 crore as on December 24. Among its investors are the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector arm of the World Bank Group, which invested $2.5 million in 2006. This was preceded by an investment of $8 million for an 8% stake by LB 1 Group Inc, an affiliate of the now defunct investment banker Lehman Brothers.

This preferential allotment had brought down promoter share holding to 42%. The IFC investment was in addition to its prior commitment of $11 million long term debt to KPIT Cummins. Cargil Ventures and Cummins Inc are the other strategic investors in the software company.

KPIT Cummins’ moves now follow a 2% across the-board salary cut by Persistent Systems, a Pune-based outsourced software product developer.

India Inc hiring temporary employees to cut cost

2008-12-31T03:04:00.000-08:00

Indian companies are increasingly resorting to temporary hiring of highly skilled professionals such as scientists and engineers as they Cos that are hiring
Recruiting best talent

try to rein in costs in a slowing economy, staffing firms and human resource management professionals say.

While retailers, business process outsourcing providers and project-led organisations and industries have been among the early adopters of the temporary hiring model, new sectors such as energy, healthcare and pharmaceuticals are turning to contract staff with specialised skills and for managerial roles.

Staffing service companies which provide manpower say ’temping’ is gaining recognition in difficult economic times as a good option for financially smart companies, helping them take on more time-based assignments while reducing the cost of permanent hiring.

Temporary employees are seen as a cost-effective solution because they are typically on the payroll of the staffing service provider and do not burden the company with benefits that permanent staff are normally provided. Moreover, they give companies the flexibility to quickly alter the size of their workforce depending on business needs.

Bangalore-based temporary staffing firm TeamLease says it has seen a 20-25% increase in demand for temps from industries such as energy and healthcare, while Chennai-based Ma Foi put the growth at up to 15%. ”The temping practice in new sectors has been a good source of demand for us,” says Rajesh AR, VP, temping, at TeamLease.

Globally, temporary hiring is well established and in many cases, contract staff get paid more than permanent employees. But in India, there is a perception that temping is mainly for low-skill positions; many companies even refuse to acknowledge that they use this model of hiring.

But temporary staffing providers say that the mandate of job descriptions and salaries leads them to believe that the silver lining in the job market is the rise and recognition of the model. ”It is almost like an ’awakening,’” says Rajiv Mehrotra, country general manager, Kelly Services India.

And new sectors hiring temps have also raised the quality bar. ”We see this more because several companies now want people with specialised knowledge even when it comes to temps,” says E Balaji, CEO of Ma Foi Management Consultants.
This is happening across sectors and not just those hit by the slowdown.

Prabir Jha, global HR head at pharmaceutical company Dr Reddy’s, says while temping is more common at the junior level, they have a few consultants at senior levels too as temp staffers.

IT majors job-hunting for employees

2008-12-31T03:00:00.002-08:00

A slew of top tech companies including Yahoo, Cisco and Genpact are doing something unusual: jobhunting for their employees. The practice, known as
‘outplacement’ , would ensure that these companies lose no goodwill even as they get rid of extra manpower to cope with dwindling business in the wake of a global slowdown.

According to several human resource (HR) consultants ET spoke with, outplacement — a concept popular in western markets for over 30 years — is gaining ground in India. During past three months, companies across the segments of IT, business process outsourcing (BPO) and FMCG have offered such help to their staff. HUL, Motorola, Sapient, Yahoo, Intel, Genpact, Cisco and Fidelity are among several companies in India who have offered out-placement help to their affected employees.

“Outplacement is gaining ground in India but usually it is done in an informal manner and companies do not want to publicise it too much,“ said Mr G C Jayaprakash, principal consultant at Stanton Chase International, a global executive search firm. “When a global software product development company wanted to downsize, they asked me to get in touch with another firm to see if they would like to absorb the employees,” he said.

Agrees Vati Consulting chief executive Amitabh Das: “Very few organisations have used it in India and in most cases, it has been the MNCs. Indian organisations generally shy away it.”

People Capability Maturity Model (PCMM) certification — an international framework that helps organisations address their critical people issues —makes it mandatory for companies to offer out-placement help.

And it pays off. Companies that offer outplacement stand a good chance to attract talent when the situation improves. “Retrenched employees bear no negative feelings and perceive the organisation as a good employer. It also sends a positive message to the remaining workforce thereby giving fillip to morale, loyalty , productivity and retention,” ABC Consultants chief executive Shiv Agrawal said.

India Inc hiring slows down 22 pc in Oct: Naukri.com

2008-12-31T03:00:00.001-08:00

Reeling under the impact of the global economic crisis, India Inc has scaled down its hiring plans with recruitment falling by nearly 22
per cent in October, a latest report by job portal Naukri.com says.

"The current job scenario indicates slowdown in hiring by almost 21.9 per cent, a sharper decline as compared to a usual seasonal decline of 10 per cent," the report citing data from its job index stated.

The 'Job Speak' index suggests that companies are scaling back recruitment plans due to the global financial crisis and the current economic conditions, it said.

The overall job index in October 2008 is 781 as compared to 1,000 in July 2008, indicating a decline of almost 21.9 per cent.

The job index has been calculated based on new jobs added to the site month on month; jobs in July have been taken on a base of 1,000 and the August, September and October data have been indexed against July.

Further, the report said that metros, the bulk provider of jobs, witnessed a decline in new jobs to the tune of 16 per cent in comparison with the usual 10 per cent in earlier festive seasons.

Metros saw fewer new jobs due to the impact of the slowdown along with the usual fall due to festivals - Diwali and Dussehra.

The job index for Delhi fell from 1,000 to 786. Mumbai saw a higher setback in October as compared to September and August; the job index fell from 1,000 to 715 in October this year as compared to July 2008, the Naukri.com report pointed out.

Yahoo lays off 45 people in India.

2008-12-31T02:59:00.000-08:00

BANGALORE: Global search engine and web services provider Yahoo! laid off 45 people from its India operations as part of its worldwide firing policy
due to global meltdown, a company spokesman confirmed here Thursday.

"Around three percent (45 people) of our India headcount, which is 1,500, has been asked to go Wednesday as per the directive from our headquarters at Sunnyvale in the US," a spokesman of Yahoo India subsidiary told IANS here.

The pink-slips were in line with the company's guidance given in October for the fourth quarter of 2008, which hinted at terminating the services of about 1,500 employees worldwide during the current quarter.

"We completed the termination process within a day of receiving the notification from our parent company. Majority of those laid off were from Bangalore operations, while the rest are from Mumbai. The layoffs were based on two parameters - performance and business realignment," the spokesman said, but declined to be named.

Admitting the company had begun to consolidate its business by shutting some non-performing divisions and clubbing other operations into new entities, the spokesman said the realignment was being done in view of the impact the global meltdown had in the space it has been operating over the years.

"Some business activities have been shut and their staff redeployed in strategic operations. We are exploring newer areas to sustain the growth momentum," the spokesman said.

Interestingly, those who have been sacked were given an attractive severance package and some of them were referred to other firms as part of its outplacement service.

In an e-mail to employees, outgoing chief executive Jerry Yang said though the layoffs were very hard to make, they were unavoidable so as to focus on the long-term health of its business.

"This is a tough time for all of us," Yang quipped.

This is the second time in the last 12 months when Yahoo! India laid off after a similar exercise led to the exit of 40 people from its research and development and web services divisions in Bangalore and Mumbai.

Is Microsoft headed for layoffs??

2008-12-31T02:51:00.000-08:00

Microsoft News:

As the year draws to an end, it seems bellwethers like Microsoft have also fallen prey to the ongoing slump. The internet and blogs have Microsoft in News
been agog with rumours about Microsoft laying off 10 per cent of its staff and it could be as early as the second week of January. And more often than not, such strong business rumours have their genesis in ground realities within companies.

The chain of rumours may own its genesis to the advice that Microsoft has got from brokerage firm Oppenheimer & Co's. The company has been advised to cut its workforce by 10 per cent, or about 9,100 employees, to tell the market that profits are more important than revenue growth in difficult times.

The company's analyst Brad Reback has said in a report on Microsoft that such layoff exercise "would be a healthy move for the company."

The move would be well received by the market and would "signal that profitability is more important than revenue growth during this very difficult time," Reback added.

Calling for a 10 per cent reduction on the company's payrolls, Reback said in his report for the institutional investors of Microsoft that this would result in an approximately 10 per cent gain in its earnings per share.

Reportedly, Microsoft has already started the internal drill of informing employees that the company is readying major layoffs to its worldwide operations and it's not a small cut either. As per the various blogs, insiders feel that things are looking grim while a few managers have leaked information about substantial workforce reductions on January 15, 2009.

So effectively, the company seems to be toying with the idea of pruning about 10 per cent of its 90,000 strong workforce to tide over the downturn which, according to net reports, could go up to 15,000 or 17 per cent of the total workforce.

Apparently, MSN might be carrying the brunt of the layoffs and there are rumours about the possibility of somewhat larger staff cuts at Microsoft Europe, Middle East and Africa operations.

The timing of the layoffs is in sync with the company's Microsoft's Q2 earnings report which takes place on the 22nd of January 2009.

If the cut comes through, Microsoft will be joining Google and Yahoo in laying off staff to shield the company form the aftermaths of a slump. The Microsoft employees have hit blogs and networking sites big time to share their insecurity.

"I’ve been hearing some stealth layoffs around the SQL and BOSG groups, around 70+ people were given 6 weeks to find another position within the company, otherwise they are laid off,” an anonymous Microsoft worker said in a statement posted on the net.

There is quite a bit of re-engineering underway already. Says another employee: "Our 120+ person organization has just been broken up due to lack of budget. About 1/2 the team is staying, the other half is going to a number of different teams within the larger org. So far, we all appear to have jobs, but man, what a shocker, I thought ours was one of the more stable teams.” I also don’t know if this is the first step towards a layoff, but for now, it seems we’ll have jobs for a few more months.”

According to net reports, one area in general, known as Live Meeting, also seems to have a shake-up going on. An employee who works in the department said it’s a very hostile environment right now.

People are pulled into meetings with management where they get interrogated about what they are working on, people are given impossible tasks like coding things not yet designed, automating things not get coded, documenting unfinished ideas. On top of that they must account for their time by the hour. Live Meeting is in its death throes,” a Live Meeting staffer said.

Yahoo says no hiring freeze, campus recruitments as per plan.

2008-12-23T21:49:00.001-08:00

Yahoo says no hiring freeze, campus recruitments as per plan.

-: The Indian arm of the global search engine and web provider, Yahoo, today said that it had not put a freeze on hiring and that campus
recruitment plans were still on.

"There is no freeze on hiring and campus recruitment is going ahead as per plan," Yahoo India's Vice President and Head of Emerging Markets, Gopal Krishna, told reporters here today.

However, Krishna did not give any specific numbers that the compnay planned to hire through campus recruitments.

The company had recently laid-off three per cent of its total work force in India as a part of its cost-cutting drive in the wake of the global economic meltdown. Globally, Yahoo has cut down its workforce by 10 per cent.

In India, the impact of recession was minimal, Krishna said, adding that, "in the coming year, we will be focussing more on catering to the needs of the local market."

The company was also working on exclusive pages for the metro market, which would serve the specific requirements of people living in the metros, he said.

"The pages will serve as a dash board for the end-user and will be tailor-made to his needs," Krishna said.

To a question whether there was any cut in the outsourcing of contents, Gopal said, "over the last few years, we have witnessed an increase in the supply of content.
----------------------------

Good News - Union Bank of India would hire about 5000 employees in 2009.

2008-12-23T21:46:00.000-08:00

Union Bank of India would hire about 5000 employees in 2009

=> Government run Union Bank of India (UBI) would hire about 5000 employees in 2009. This would include 300 specialist officers for the
micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME).

Out of the 5,000 employees the bank is hiring, there will be about 2,500 pro-bationary officers. The bank also has plans to increase its branches to more than 3,000 by the end of the current fiscal from
around 2,600 at present.

The bank has plans to open 175 specialised branches exclusively focused on the MSME sector. Out of these 75 would be exclusively for the small and me-dium business.

"They are meant for customers in this segment with limits up to Rs 35 crore or having a turnover less than Rs 1,000 crore," UBI field general manager north zone A K Bansal told reporters.

The bank expects its advances to the MSME sector to grow at 30%. MSMEs constitute 16% of the banks total advances and UBI plans to take it to 20%.

The bank has tied-up with Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) for identifying and financing working capital component for those MSMEs where term finance has been extended by SIDBI.

So Its good news for all candidates preparing for banking exams...
Stay alert for forms dates & Best of the luck.

Relocate or quit, MphasiS tells Noida unit employees.

2008-12-23T21:31:00.001-08:00

Relocate or quit, MphasiS tells Noida unit employees

nEWS: IT services firm MphasiS has asked all 1,300-1,500 employees at its Noida office to either move to a low-cost location or quit. Most of
the employees have quit or are in the process of quitting the firm. Only a few have decided to shift to another centre, informed four former employees who quit recently.

MphasiS, majority-owned by EDS that was acquired by HP this year, offers outsourcing services in financial services, healthcare, communications, transportation, consumer & retail industries and has over 28,000 people on its rolls. It set up the Noida centre in 2005 for BPO operations and has over 1,000 BPO employees, besides some IT employees.

The four former MphasiS employees ET spoke to said the company had told the BPO employees about three months ago to decide between quitting or relocating to other MphasiS centres such as Indore and Vadodara. All employees were given time till December-end to decide and were not given any reason behind the move.

A company spokeswoman said that MphasiS continues to work out of the Noida centre. “We continue to shape our operations as per our client needs, and have recently set up a new centre in Vadodara. MphasiS, is known for its sensitive HR policies and the interests of its employees are a priority,” she said. The spokeswoman did not comment on the decision to relocate people.

Besides giving the option to relocate, MphasiS had invited rival firms such as HCL, ExlService Holdings and Tech Mahindra to recruit from among its employees.

One of the four ex-employees, who bagged a job with one of these firms, said most BPO employees at the Noida centre had managed to find another job.

However, those in the IT services business were not so lucky. One former IT employee at Noida said the company informed the team about a month ago that they need to find another job. “They also said that if we quit early, we will get our retention bonus, which was due later, with our November salary,” he said, adding he is yet to find another job.

Earlier this month, MphasiS opened a 400-seat BPO centre in Vadodara. The company had said it plans to increase the number of seats to 800 seats and employ 2,500 people within a year.

Oracle trims staff cost.

2008-12-23T21:30:00.000-08:00

Oracle trims staff cost:

MUMBAI: Oracle Financial Services Software, formerly called i-flex solutions, is now taking various steps to cut down its employee costs.

After Oracle’s acquisition of i-flex last year, the company is trying to prune its costs given the current scenario. The firm provides IT solutions to the financial services industry. The news that its is trimming costs as well as manpower is spreading to other sectors as well.

According to sources close to the company, those employees on the bench will be given only 50% of their salary and have been asked to work for fewer hours a day. An employee working with the firm said that even management graduates, who had joined in November would be given a part of their salary, around 40% of the Rs 4.4 lakh pay package that they are entitled to, for December, January and February. A mail sent to the company by ET remained unanswered. The company employs around 11,000 people.

Wipro set to acquire Citi Technology Services.

2008-12-23T21:24:00.000-08:00

MUMBAI: Wipro is believed to be acquiring Citigroup's subsidiary Citi Technology Services (CTS), formerly called Citos. CTS is the technology and infrastructure outsourcing arm of Citi.

The $100-million deal is likely to be announced this evening in Bangalore.

This is the second time that Citi, will sell off its Indian back-office operations. In early October, it had sold its captive BPO Citigroup Global Services (CGSL) to Tata Consultancy Services for $505 million.

The move incidentally would also help Citi in cutting down its employee strength. Citos employs close to 2,500 people and has offices in Mumbai and Chennai. Citi had earlier said that it is looking at cutting down 15% of its employee base or 52,000 employees in the next one year.

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However, both the parties refused to comment on the deal. "Yes there is strategic announcement to be made, but at this point we cannot say more." said a Wipro spokesperson. "At Citi, we practice the policy of not commenting on market rumors/speculation." said a Citi spokesperson.

CTS, a 100% subsidiary of Citigroup, provides critical technology infrastructure support, development and deployment of strategic software applications in the BFSI domain. It provides application development, maintenance and testing support for credit cards, core banking, equities and treasury to Citi entities world-wide.

A successful acquisition of CTS will strengthen the infrastructure and facilities management business of Wipro. Currently, Wipro has established its presence in the Indian market for these of services. Acquisition of CTS would help Wipro bag Citigroup as a key client. The global financial institution has more than 200 million customers in more than 100 countries.

A successful acquisition will also offer Wipro the ability to build capabilities and efficiencies around the technology. Also, the possibility of committed business contract from Citigroup to Wipro cannot be ruled out.

Initially, it will sign a deal with Citi Technology Services for 6 years. In the recent deal concluded by Citigroup, TCS was assured a long-term revenue contract of $2.5 billion.

Whats Behind!! World Banks Bans over Satyam for 8 years.!!

2008-12-23T20:49:00.000-08:00

What is going on???!!!
The Most Esteemed, Grand & Prominent Fiscal Entity of the world - 'The World Bank' Bans the Satyam for 8 years !!!

MUMBAI/HYDERABAD: The Satyam saga is getting murkier by the day, with more questions being raised on its corporate governance standards. The World
Bank on Tuesday confirmed an earlier report that it has barred Satyam Computer Services from doing business with it for eight years, starting September this year, due to data theft and paying bribes to its staff.

However, it’s not clear if the company’s independent directors knew about these allegations. Two independent directors told ET that the Satyam management had merely informed the board that its contract with the World Bank had ended, without referring to the fact that it has been barred from doing business with the Bank for eight years. The World Bank has been an important client for Satyam, India’s fourth-largest software exporter. The multilateral agency had signed $100-million billing per annum contract.

“The World Bank had never complained or informed us... Satyam’s contract with the World Bank had come up for discussions in an earlier board meeting. We were told that as a matter of policy, the World Bank does not renew contracts with the same vendor for more than five years,” said TR Prasad, independent director on the Satyam Board. This was reconfirmed by another independent board member VS Raju. “Yes, we have banned Satyam from doing business with us,” the World Bank spokesperson, Sudip Mazumder, told ET from New Delhi.

He confirmed a Fox News report which had said the World Bank had imposed an 8-year ban on Satyam, the harshest punishment meted out to any company since 2004.

In October this year, Ram Mynampati, president (commercial and healthcare business) of Satyam Computer Services and a member of the Board, also said the World Bank, as a matter of policy, does not renew contracts with the same vendor. E-mail queries to two other directors, Vinod Dham and Krishna Palepu, remained unanswered at the time this story was written.

When contacted by ET, a Satyam spokesperson said the company does not comment on individual clients.
Since 2003, Satyam had been writing and maintaining all software for World Bank across all locations. This also included maintenance of software in back-end offices. Satyam's shares plunged as much as 14% to close at Rs 140.40 on Tuesday, amid rumours, subsequently denied, that its founder and chairman B Ramalinga Raju was stepping down from the Board. “I have not received any message or intimation from the promoter,” TR Prasad, independent director, told ET.

According to the US-based Fox News, in 2005, the Bank's chief information officer, Mohamed Muhsin, was sacked after being accused of improperly buying preferential stock options from Satyam, even as he awarded the firm major contracts.

After an internal investigation, Muhsin was banned permanently from the Bank in January 2007. But Satyam was allowed to remain in control of the Bank's information network till early October 2008, a report on the Fox News website said.

The World Bank's disclosure on Tuesday could be an embarrassment for the company which is embroiled in an unrelated controversy after its scuppered bid to buy two firms linked to its promoter B Ramalinga Raju.

Mr Raju holds an 8.5% stake in Satyam Computer Services which faced a major shareholder rebellion last week after it announced plans to buy two firms linked to the promoter for $1.6 billion. The decision was endorsed by the Board. But within a few hours, the company called off the deal to buy Maytas Infra and Maytas Properties. It has, however, been tight-lipped on key questions on who did the valuation of the real estate firm.

Meanwhile, the registrar of companies in Andhra Pradesh has initiated a probe into Satyam's proposed acquisition. But the company has not received any communication from Sebi or the US SEC, said a company official, who did not wish to be named. The investment committee of Life Insurance Corporation, Aberdeen, and Reliance Mutual Fund are seeking an explanation from Satyam promoters on the jinxed Maytas acquisition. The institutional investors own a sizeable stake, almost 60%, in the company.