The Hindu Business Line : Entry-level BPO salaries steadying

Bangalore May 17 Is it the calm before the storm or after one? Difficult to say, but BPOs and recruitment firms are admitting that entry-level salaries in the industry are seeing some stability.

Mr S. Nagarajan, founder and Chief People Officer, 247 Customer, says salaries in generic BPOs (mainly call centres and some non-voice BPOs) have stabilised at Rs 10,000-12,000 per month. Citing reasons for this, he says that candidates too realise that it's important to build domain expertise in their areas of work (BFSI, telecom, retail) rather than jump jobs for a couple of thousand bucks more. "This year we have not seen highs of Rs 18,000-Rs 20,000 per month, which happened during the last few years," according to him.

Agrees Mr Rishi Das, CEO, CareerNet Consulting, a recruitment firm for specialised and high-end BPOs, "Entry level-salaries in low-end BPOs are now around Rs 1.2 lakh-Rs 1.8 lakh per annum. This could be because of an enlarging pool of workers."

"The good news is that poaching in the industry is not as intense as it was earlier," says Mr Sampath Shetty, Vice-President, Permanent Staffing, TeamLease Services.

`Temporary' phenomenon

But, this stability could be temporary, warns Mr Amitabh Chaudhry, CEO and Managing Director, Infosys BPO, "The stability we have been seeing this year will change overnight when new business comes in and companies start poaching to fill seats."

Mr Pallab Bandyopadhyay, Chief People Officer, Cambridge Solutions, says BPO salaries, which have been steady for sometime now, may see fluctuations with a likely invasion of talent from the retail sector. "Both industries need similar profiles and so, we may see a churn soon."

Mid-level salaries in the industry, however, have seen a 15-20 per cent rise over last year. And so have salaries in BPOs doing high-end and specialised work like in data analytics firms, business research companies and legal outsourcing firms, says Mr Das.

In fact, KPOs and LPOs are recruiting MBAs and IITians for salaries ranging between Rs 6-7 lakh per annum.

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