The US-based Kelly Services, a $5.4 billion workforce solutions’ company for several Fortune 500 clients, has provided jobs for 5.4 lakh candidates during 2013. In an interview, the company’s Senior vice-president for APAC, EMEA and North Asia JV operations, Natalia Shuman, shares her views about hiring trends as well as challenges facing multinationals in India.

How do you see India from a jobs perspective compared with other countries? Which are the sectors that have a high potential for generating jobs?

As a company, Kelly Services generally works on a regional strategy or a global strategy. Many of our global clients see India as an important strategic market and we would like to be recognised as an important regional player. About 95 per cent of Kelly Services clients have shown interest in investing in India and look at it as a strategic business market. For Kelly, client verticals for which hiring is done are life sciences which is our largest vertical and IT and oil and natural resources, which is the second largest.

The growth prospect in India is huge, but a global stakeholder has to deal with local hiring complexities with regards to labour laws due to which they often face difficulties. As the economy evolves, we will see a change in the hiring scenario in India which will directly impact the growth opportunities within the country as well as for foreign investors

What are some of the hiring trends that you see across countries including India?

Keeping in view the current global economic scenario, the investments are on hold. We see that except for companies in IT or technology, there is a positive sentiment in Europe. At the same time lateral hiring in India is very high: sectors like IT are doing well in terms of recruiting freshers and this will continue to grow in the first few quarters this year. We also see that the manufacturing sector in India is seeing a slump in hiring and pharma/ life sciences is witnessing a neutral sentiment in terms of hiring. We have also been seeing stagnation in the Indian recruitment industry since the last three quarters of 2013. As there have been very less investments by companies on a large scale, it has impacted fresher hiring in a huge way and this will only improve or gain momentum by 2016.

What are the key issues that need to be tackled to boost hiring this fiscal?

During this time, confidence building of the political scenario needs to take place. We hope that there will be a little relaxation with regards to the labour legislation which will accelerate growth in India. If we compare the recruitment figures for the last year, there were only 1.2 million jobs that were created, which is very low when compared to 2002-07, when the recruitment industry saw a boom and hiring thrice of 1.2 million. According to a 2006 report, 8 lakh Indians migrated of which 2 lakh to 3 lakh were skilled people. Since then, we have not seen migration happen on a large scale. As there is a visible shortage of skills, many candidates are not employable in terms of global hiring as it is seen as the deciding factor while hiring a candidate.

You mentioned about tough labour laws in India. What do you think needs to be done to make it more friendly for large corporations to start hiring here?

Today, any billion dollar company would like to set up base in India but due to the stringent labour laws, they prefer going to countries like China. Scaling up and scale down of a company in India is an issue and the hiring and exit process is very critical and tedious. Employee exit structures in countries like the US and Europe are very simple; the only documentation required are social security and basic handover in the US and Europe and in Singapore, a two-month salary.

What are the salary levels in India compared with other countries? Do you think India has become a mature market now compared with the developed economies?

From a salary perspective, India is still considered to be a low-cost country. But if we see it as a business cost, India is not a low-cost country; the cost of carrying out business in India is huge as compared with its global counterparts.

Companies in India are also witnessing a high level of attrition. Is there a specific reason for this or is it a global phenomenon?

Attrition level in India is very high and from a customer perspective it is not good. Logically, when the attrition level is high there are more opportunities, but when attrition is high, the company proficiency is not very good. The reason for a high attrition rate is because employee loyalty is very low, the expectations from a job is also very high, dissatisfaction with the job, compensation levels are not so good and wage inflation is also impacting the attrition rate. Therefore, to decrease the cost of doing business, companies are now looking at setting up base in Myanmar, Vietnam and Philippines as well.

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