By Shefali Anand
Jobs are back, thanks to an uptick in the Indian economy over the last few months.
- European Pressphoto Agency
- After a tough 2008 and 2009, hotels, resorts and other tourism-related services are hiring again.
But who is hiring, and what are they looking for?
Here, we list five industries that are crying out for new employees. But be warned: hiring this time around is not like the boom times of 2006 and 2007. Back then, companies were hiring indiscriminately, taking on tons of fresh-out-of-school graduates and ready to invest time and money to train them. This time, companies increasingly want more experienced people, preferably ready to hit the ground running as soon as they start their jobs. Also, companies are spreading their recruitment throughout the year instead of concentrating the hiring process at the beginning of the financial year.
Nearly one million new jobs could be created in the organized sector this year, estimates human resource services firm Ma Foi Randstad. A lot of them will be in the following industries:
- Healthcare
The expansion of hospitals, primary healthcare centers and diagnostic centers in India, has created a hunger for staff in these businesses.
According to Ma Foi Randstad Employment Trends Surve released on Thursday, the healthcare industry will create 160,000 jobs within the three months ended June.
Within this industry, among the most in-demand professionals are nurses, who are in short supply both in India as well as abroad. K. Pandia Rajan, chief executive of Ma Foi (India & Sri Lanka), says that some nurses who get hired outside India earn more than a software engineer from a second-tier engineering school in India.
There’s also a lot of demand for people in “allied health services” such as laboratory technicians, x-ray technicians and staff at physiotherapy units. Neighboring Southeast Asian countries and the Middle East are also seeking this talent as they build their medical tourism capabilities, says Kamal Karanth, managing director of Kelly Services India, a human resource services firm.
2. Banking and Financial Services
Banks and financial companies have always been major creators of jobs and the momentum has once again increased in recent months.
Both public sector and foreign banks are now expanding rapidly across India and are in need of more talent to sell their products and build their brands. They are primarily looking for relationship managers, and front-end managers, to build the services part of their businesses.
Similarly, insurance and money management companies are expanding rapidly, to tap India’s growing wealth. Top sales and marketing people at these companies find it easy to switch to other industries, and they have been, leaving many a job empty.
3. Information Technology and IT-Enabled Services
As the global economy came out of the worst of the recession, India’s information technology companies have seen an increase in demand for their products and services. As a direct result, in recent months they have stepped up their hiring.
At the same time, after the recent lull in the job market, there has been a lot of attrition in this industry lately, as people look for better-paying jobs in rival companies.
Kelly Services’ Mr. Karanth expects that Infosys, Wipro and their ilk could easily absorb 100,000 professionals before the end of this calendar year. He says the most demand is for entry-level programmers as well as for the next level of staff, such as team managers and so on.
The related IT-Enabled Services industry, which basically refers to outsourcing firms, is also hiring, typically freshers and mid-level managers.
4. Hospitality
This was one of the fastest-growing sectors before the recent economic downturn, but was hurt sharply in 2008 and 2009. Now, once again, there is growing momentum in the construction and operation of new hotels, resorts and other tourism-related services.
Market experts expect increased investment in this sector, which should, in turn, further result in new jobs.
While the industry is looking for a wide variety of talent – from chefs to service-keeping staff – the need of the hour is to hire people to run hotels or resorts successfully. In other words, they want people in services or operations management.
5. Real Estate and Construction
Over the last few months, there has been a sharp increase in the construction of homes and housing prices, and big real estate companies have listed major expansion plans.
While this intuitively would give rise to more jobs, human resource consultants are divided on how large this number could be. Also, a large number of people who work in this industry – particularly real estate brokers and salespeople – are not affiliated to companies, and are thus hard to account for.
There is demand for sales and marketing personnel for major real estate projects, but some niche related fields of work are also experiencing a boom. These include architects, designers and technical surveyors, says Mr. Rajan of Ma Foi.
Source: Wall Street Journal Blog
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