Nearly three-fourths of public and private sector manufacturing companies did not plan to increase headcounts in the October-December quarter of 2012, mirroring the depressed outlook for production and exports. The latest Quarterly Industrial Outlook Survey commissioned by the Reserve Bank of India found that just 19.2 per cent of the 2,000 firms in the manufacturing space expected to increase their workforce, while 5.9 per cent were contemplating downsizing.

It should be noted that an assessment of actual hiring and firing activities in these companies over the past year indicates that the downsizing was larger than projected, whereas hiring was generally in line with the projections. The recruitment outlook has been more or less the same during 2011-12, with just about one-fifth of the respondents to the RBI's quarterly survey expecting to hire more people. But the good news is that a lower proportion of the respondents were looking to slash their workforce than in the second quarter of FY13. The hiring sentiment was much stronger in previous year. 

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