58 million jobs to be created till 2012 

The government seems confident that it would be able to create 58 million additional jobs by the end of the 11th Five Year Plan in 2012. The reason behind this is the recovery in the farm sector and this has had a positive impact on the rural economy. All this was told by the Labour Minister recently.

Since agriculture has shown quite a positive trend, the economy is expected to grow at nine percent in this fiscal year. The unemployment would be staying in control.
The minster said, "The real position will be known after data on employment and unemployment is released by the National Sample Survey Organisation."

Two thirds of the labour is directly or indirectly engaged in agriculture and the growth in this sector would definitely prove beneficial.

The gross domestic product (GDP) has climbed upto 8.9 percent each in the first two quarters.

The 10th Five Year Plan could not meet its target of creating 50 million additional jobs because manufacturing, tourism and agriculture sectors could not generate much employment

The labour ministry has put together a working draft of a new employment policy. Skilled manpower would be created which would be demanded by both public and private sectors. "The focus of the policy will be on employment generation and productivity with flexible framework of training," said the Labour Minister, Mr.Rawat.

Employment exchanges would now be modernized. It would be done with public-private partnership model. Accurate data on vacancies, skill set requirements etc would all be available online. Currently 37 million people are registered with employment exchanges.
Exchanges would also be providing counselling and would serve as a platform for employers to post their vacancies and gather information on available skill sets.

Source: The Economic Times

Indian companies out for hiring top talent 
 
The young companies, across the country are trying to hire top talent and this competition among them is growing more intense. All this is due to setting up of new businesses by the entrepreneurs. They are in competition with the large business houses and corporations.


The demand from startups has increased to 350-400 this year from 100 people last year. This was told by the head of HR department of a firm that specializes in startup services.  


There is a manifold increase in hiring by startups. The average employee headcount has risen to a median of 20 from one in the current year. 

According to an employability assessment firm based in Gurgaon, less than a fifth of engineering graduates were ready to work in small companies, with only 7.2% actively seeking such a position.
 
The reasons which make the talented professional stay away from the startup companies are their untested businesses, simple offices, minimal support, modest pay packages and no brand names. To solve all these problems the HR firms are trying to attract the professionals through the social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
The pinch of having almost zero brand names is felt by the startups. There is greater shortage of talented professionals more in technology firms where core team of developers is required for product development.

Another challenge faced by them is retention. They find it difficult to retain the talent for a longer period of time in the wake of huge demand and supply gap.
 
Employees also prefer to work in startups that are backed by significant risk capital investment by a prominent investor.
 
In order to lure the talent some internet startups are also ready to pay higher to retain talent.
 
All this can affect innovation in the startup ecosystem.
 
Source: Economic Times

Common entrance test for banks 

From the next year onwards there will now be a common entrance test on all India bases for those aspiring to join public sector banks. The objective behind this decision is that it would reduce recruitment time and all the hassles and complexities attached to the recruitment process. This would be beneficial both for the candidates as well as for the banks. 

The recruitment process will now take quite a less time. So the candidates won’t have to face mental tension during the waiting time after the exam. All this was told by Indian Banks Association's Chief Executive, K Ramakrishnan, to PTI. He said that there would now be a common pan-India entrance test.

The complete process at present takes almost one year right from advertisement to examination and interview stage till the stage of final recruitment.
It is planned to conduct three-four such common entrance examinations. This would be done every year beginning with 2011.

The exam will be conducted by The Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS) and will also declare the results of the exam and give a scorecard to the candidates. The scores would be valid for up to one to one-and-a-half-years.
 

These exams will be held for clerical staff and entry-point officers.

Source: The Times of India

Govt planning to have a common central exam for school teachers

It is being thought by the government to replacing the state-level exams for recruiting school teachers. It will be substituted with a common centralized examination. All this is aimed to improve the quality of teaching in the country’s government schools. This was told by the officials of human resource development ministry.

Talks among the human resource ministry and the states and the National Council for Teacher Education will soon take place regarding this matter.

Candidates will have to appear for the proposed examination. After completing Bachelor of Education or Diploma in Education qualification the candidates can appear for this proposed examination.

This has been proposed by some state governments. A centralized system would be carried out by the state government. This would be done in order to handle the logistics effectively. Format, question bank and parameters would also be given to the state governments. 

India needs one million teachers at present. Then only can the Right to Education Act would be implemented effectively. There are around 220 million students in schools all over the country.

Not only we need teachers in large numbers but we also need quality work. So the teachers would be selected from the universe of those who cleared this entrance exam. The new proposal would be notified in a few months.  

Other areas which need attention apart from recruiting the teachers are to reduce absenteeism among teachers and improving the level of learning among the students. 

Source: Livemint

$2 billion for education, pledged by Premji

Wipro chairman Azim Premji has pledged to give about Rs 8,846 crore ($2 billion) to improve school education in India. 213 million shares would be transferred to a trust.. The transfer would be completed by December 7. This statement was given by Wipro to Bombay Stock Exchange 

This philanthropic act is expected to fund the educational activities of the Azim Premji Foundation which is dedicated to work in the area of education in rural India. Premji is India's third richest man with a net worth of $18 billion. 

A $2-billion endowment even at a conservative return of 8%- 12% is expected to generate annually returns of $160-250 million (Rs 750-1,150 crore). This will be used to run APF initiatives, including the Bangalore-based Azim Premji University. 

The university, offering post-graduate courses in education and development, will start with 200 students in 2011 and scale to 2,000 in 4-5 year. 

In a statement issued by Wipro, it was said that good education was the foremost need and requisite for building a just, equitable, humane and a sustainable society. 

Whether it is school level of education or university level, major focus would be on the underprivileged sections of the society.

AIEEE to online from next year 

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has announced that the All India Engineering Entrance Examination (AIEEE) will go online from next year just like CAT, which has also been made online since 2009.

It is an entrance test which is conducted by the CBSE for admission to Bachelor of Engineering (BE) and Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech) at various Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), National Institutes of Technology (NITs). The test scores are also used for admission by other state-level engineering institutions.

An expert agency will conduct the online format of AIEEE from next year. The board is still indecisive about the entrance exam for Bachelor of Architecture (B.Arch.) i.e. whether it would be conducted online or not.

It has been decided by CBSE that it would involve an outside agency for this test at national level. This will ensure its smooth working. It would be similar to the conduction of CAT which is conducted by Prometric.

Well experienced and quality oriented agencies are being invited by the board for designing and constructing large scale professional examinations on Computer-Based Testing (CBT) mode for AIEEE, 2011.

It has also been decided to merge the All India Pre-Medical Test (AIPMT) with the AIEEE from 2011. CBSE conducts AIPMT every year in order to fill up 15% of the seats in MBBS and BDS courses in various government medical as well as dental colleges against all India quota.

A combined merit list is drawn by AIEEE for different categories of engineering colleges. The online format of the AIPMT to be conducted from the next is yet to be clarified by CBSE. 

 

PG seats to be increased: MCI 

The chairperson of MCI, recently at a convocation ceremony, said that MCI wants to increase the PG seats in the medical colleges all over the country. MCI also expects to bring about absolute transparency in the system in the coming times.

The objective behind all this is to bring about greater opportunities for the students so that they are able to define their career paths more precisely. Our country needs doctors and post graduates in large numbers along with other health care professionals.

Comparing with U.S the chairperson of MCI said, “The number of seats for post graduates in the US are 24000 while for under graduates it is 16000. In India however we have 35000 seats for under graduates and 11000 seats for post graduates. We hope to change this equation."

The post graduate seats are likely to be increased to 19000. More colleges would be made to offer a post graduate degree courses. All this can provide greater opportunities for students even in rural areas. Meticulous planning, proper strategies and vision are important for the students to succeed.

With the removal of the essentiality clause now there are five times more applicants for the PG degree courses. This without compromising on quality and competence the country would be able to get better and well qualified medical professionals.  
 

Source: Times of India

CMU to provide engineering education in India

It was announced by Carnegie Mellon University and a foundation in India that a partnership would provide an undergraduate engineering course to students in India and in Pittsburgh to get a degree from CMU.

The announcement as a legislation has come up in the Indian parliament that leading US universities could now establish their campuses here in India.

With the growing of Indian economy in, now many foreign universities are thinking about strengthening their ties with us and have already expresses their interests to expand their functions here.

A graduate program in embedded systems would b provided to the students under this partnership. The courses in mechanical engineering and electrical and computer engineering would start from June. The curriculum is created at CMU and it would be taught at India’s SSN campus in Chennai. Its faculty has been trained at CMU.

Initially there would be small classes with 10-15 students. The number of students are expected to increase to 100 within 5 years.

CMU officials said nothing about the opening of their campus here.

CMU President Jared L. Cohon said, “This will establish a new way of delivering engineering education”. He said that India’s engineers have key role in the research and scientific institutions all over the world.

Officials believe that this partnership would prove to be very beneficial and transformational to the Indian students as CMU ranks eighth in the world for engineering.

Source: Post-Gazette

Jobs in IT and banking sector will grow in the coming years, says CRISIL report

 

A report published by CRISIL Centre Economic Research says that jobs in IT and banking sector are expected to grow in the years to come. The report on the Indian education sector titled, ‘Skilling India – The Billion People Challenge’ was published by the CRISIL Centre for Economic Research. 

It is believed that the demand for labor would be growing rapidly in the next five years in industries such as IT and financials services, which are regarded as knowledge based industries. The same would be seen in construction industry, mining and healthcare. So people with vocational skills such as technicians, welders and so on would be required on a large scale.

The report also forecasts:

• 0.62 million additional jobs would be generated in the IT sector. 
• 0.25 million and 0.09 million jobs over 2011 to 2015 would be added in both public and private sector banks. 
• Labor-intensive jobs would be created in order to absorb the workforce from the agriculture industry. 
• The industrial sector would have to double its labor demand from 119 million (in 2010) to 274 million by 2030 so that share of employment from agriculture sector gets reduced.

Thus a kind of transition would be seen towards a knowledge based economy and all this would require a new generation of educated and skilled workers. There can be skill shortages which would require vocational training and there can also be unemployment in the knowledge based sector.

The report says that the three factors determining the growth of labor productivity are:

• More capital as compared to workforce 
• Technological advancement 
• Quality of workforce

It is predicted that there would be shortfall of skilled workers in India which can affect the rate at which productivity rises. Due to increase in demand, if low skilled workers are added to the workforce, the overall workforce quality and productivity growth could be affected. The skilled workers would also be needed to put in longer hours in their work.

Jobs to be outsourced to India by Bell Canada

According to a report, a telecom giant of Canada, Bell Canada which is a subsidiary of Bell Canada Enterprises (BCE), is exploring the possibility for getting suitable vendors for outsourcing its key voice-based projects for its internet, Solo Mobility, Bell Mobility and satellite TV divisions to India.  

The headquarters of Bell Canada are in Montreal and is a leading player in wireless telecommunications. It has more than 30% of the total wireless subscribers in the country.

These projects would be outsourced by Bell Canada through it fixed payouts as part of a deal. The deal is expected to be of around $25 million to $30 million a year.  

So those looking for jobs in the area would have brighter chances of getting them after the projects have been set up.

There would largely be inbound projects which would be sent to India. It is being looked by Bell Canada wants to outsource the work to an outsourcing partner which has strong competencies in the area of  front-end work for international clients. 

The major revenue driver is wireless, which is around 50 per cent of Bell Canada's revenues. 

Bell Canada Enterprises has branched out into areas of cable TV, VoIP, IPTV, broadband internet, and wire line phones. 
 
Source: The Economic Times

Cloud computing as a “hot career” 

To deal with huge amount of data and information, cloud computing now comes as a rescue for people working in various organizations.  It is the latest technology in this area.  

Resources have to be invested by the institutions in servers to store information but not all of this data is accessed frequently. It leads to underutilization of resources and unnecessary costs. To overcome all this cloud computing is helpful. 

Remote servers are used to store and maintain data. The clients can access and use them whenever needed. The consumer only requires an internet connection to mail.

The software for the server and email management is on a ‘cloud drive’ on the internet which is managed by service providers like Yahoo and Google.

The demand for professionals is high as cloud services have a huge potential. All this was told by the executive directory (advisory) KPMG, working in the domain of cloud computing. He further said that at present our country does not have ready talent so they might command a premium.

A global IT consulting firm Zinnov says that it is expected that the global cloud computing market would be growing over $70 billion by 2015. About 3 lakh job opportunities would be created in India during the same period.

There will be impressive salary levels. At the entry-level, professional with 5-6 years of experience, can get a pay package of 12-19 lakh; while a mid-level executives can get around 20 lakh. People with 10-15 years experience can expect 30 lakh or more.

The options for upgrading of skills as limited at present. IT companies provide training to their own staff. Some certificate courses are now being offered by Aptech and NIIT. 

Source: The Times of India

India stands at 4^th place in top B-school destinations

The education prospects in India seem to be quite bright. The Times News Network reports that India stand at 4^th place in the global list of most popular destinations for management studies. 

Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) conducted a survey and came out with amazing results. In the top 10 B-Schools Canada ranks 3^rd. Israel and Spain also made surprise entries. 

The GMAC is the body that conducts GMAT which is a global B-school entrance test. Its scores are used by several top ranked business schools for admission process in management courses around the world.

Experts opine that many elite institutions have cropped up in India which is the main reason behind India's climbing up to the top fourth position. IIMs have also contributed to this success. 

Experts are of the opinion that another reason is that the return on investment in a management course is quite high as compared to the fee structure. The cost of getting management education in India is comparatively quite low as compared to the U.S and the U.K.  

It is also expected that India can soon become the most preferred destination of management studies like Singapore and Philippines in Asia. Moreover India is cheaper is as compared to its western counterparts.

For the aspiring Indian students Canada is becoming the most favourite destination for management studies. The economy there is found to be the most robust and with good job prospects and liberal visa policies.

Credit transfer system in Indian universities 

The Association of Indian Universities (AIU) is planning to come up with modalities to introduce a credit transfer system between institutions. This would be according the varsities in the US, Canada and Europe and would encourage mobility of students.

Jadavpur University’s vice-chancellor, in a meeting with AIU, said that the system of higher education in India has been overburdened as compared to the available resources here. He brought to the notice that the structural pattern of the university education in India has not been reviewed since a long period of time. There are different systems prevailing in India, as far as academic calendars and framework of curriculum is concerned.
Now the students will have an advantage to migrate from one university to another and all this has been made possible due to advancement in technology. They, no longer, would have to adhere by the some specific criteria or guidelines in order to go from university to another. They can bring back credits earned again to the previous university. This kind of system is in practice in Europe.

Those studying in various colleges of different universities in India are not allowed to move within the country. This results in debarring of the students from attending a part of the course in another university in which they want to study in order to broaden their knowledge base.

IITs and JU have the system of credit transfer like foreign universities. All this would prove beneficial for the students who come from the families where the parents have transferable jobs. In that case they would be prevented from losing one academic year. 

Source: The Times of India

India emerging as a “skill hub” for functional roles! 

There is huge availability of talent and with due to a lot of cost advantage, India is becoming a "skill hub" both for back-office jobs and global functional roles.

An executive search firm, GlobalHunt, says that in the last two-three years, there has been a 25- 35 per cent rise in global functional roles that came have to India.

Here skilled professionals are available at very competitive cost. The skills that they possess are global in nature. They are second to none in technology and analytics.

India has been given a status of a 'region status' by around 20% of the companies. We are no longer a part of Asia Pacific for them. GlobalHunt said, "Besides, 15–20 per cent of global workforces are reporting to Indian counterparts at various functions and hierarchy levels".

A large number of global companies have opened up their business centres in India which vary in size of their operations. Most of them are focussing on Indian markets.

A gradual but a growing trend is seen in this regard. Global professional interests are increasing and India based work is on rise giving the employees here better career opportunities. 

 
Source: The Hindustan Times.

Google plans to hire 300 people in India

Google Inc has recently announced that it plans to hire 300 people as it wants to double its engineering headcount in India. All this is being done to strengthen cloud computing research and development centre present in Hyderabad, to make it largest in the world.
300 engineers are to be recruited in couple of years. Google plans to increase its presence in India with focus on cloud computing. 300 are already working in Hyderabad and Bangalore. Cloud computing is web-based processing, in which shared resources, software, and information are given to computers and other devices such as smart phones when they are demanded over the Internet.

2,000 employees are already working for Google in India. Hyderabad engineering centre will be focussing on cloud computing whereas the engineering centre in Bangalore is working on cloud computing along with search, ads, maps and news. All the work that is being done is regarded as global in nature the technology being developed in these centre are meant for global business.

There are already cloud computing centres owned by Google in Mountain View in California and New York. But the one at Hyderabad is regarded as the largest in terms of the number of engineers working here.

A Google official said that India was a great market for cloud computing as it was the most price sensitive. There is excitement among small and medium business because cloud computing ensures efficiency and better utilization of resources. There are 100,000 business in India which are using technologies of Google’s cloud computing.

In all there are three million customers in cloud computing all over the world.

Source: The Economic Times

Marriot International plans to hire 8000 employees in India

8000 people would be hired in next years as Marriott International Inc. plans to open 100 hotels in India in five years. At present there are 11 hotels but it would be bringing its seven leading brands, including Ritz-Carlton to India. All this is being done in order to tap the opportunity presented by a rapidly growing economy.

The expansion would be through management contracts.

Many other top international hospitality firms such as Carlson, Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, Hyatt Corp., Inter Continental Hotel Group Plc, Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide Inc., Hilton Worldwide and Accor SA are also planning to set up more hotels in India. More capacity is also being added by Indian firms ITC Ltd, Hotel Leela Ventures Ltd and Indian Hotel Co. Ltd.

Foreign as well as domestic travellers would be benefited by the growth of international and national hospitality industry in India besides creating employment opportunities for many Indians.

Marriot International are getting help from the real estate developers in setting up of there coming up projects. Launching of 7 new hotels was announced recently while 23 are under construction and they are expected to start operating from 2013.

Franchises hotels under the Marriott are JW Marriott, Ritz-Carlton, Autograph Collection, Renaissance Hotels, Residence Inn, Courtyard, TownePlace Suites, Fairfield Inn, SpringHill Suites and Bvlgari brands.

The Vice President and Chief Operating officer was quite thrilled when he said, ”India has the second largest hotel development pipeline in Asia, and is expected to double the number of branded hotel rooms over the next three years to approximately 120,000”. He was of the opinion that India comes among the top 5 markets in terms of the number of hotels being developed.

 
Source: Livemint

Rs 40 Lakh package to students of BITS Pilani  

The graduates of Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani have been offered the highest pay package this year. All records have been broken by eight graduating students of the institute. They have been offered Rs 40 lakh per annum each.

They are hired by Schlumberger, the world's leading supplier of technology, integrated project management and information solutions to customers working in the oil and gas. Facebook, a social networking site would also be hiring some more students with an expected annual package of Rs 38.5 lakhs.

The final round of interviews would be conducted this week of the shorlisted students.

300 of 400 students of batch 2011 in both undergraduate and postgraduate programmes have already got jobs reputed companies. Pay package of Rs 12.8 lakh has been D E Shaw, a global investment and technology company based in New York. It is the highest domestic package.

25% of the batch students i.e. seventy-five students currently have job offers with a compensation of more than Rs 9 lakh. Thus many renowned national and international companies have provided placements to the students from BITS Pilani, which is one of its greatest achievements. It is believed that all this has been made possible with the support of the alumni network among the companies. 

An amazing fact coming to the surface level out of all this is that the U.S companies like Yahoo, Google, E-bay, Facebook are creating jobs for Indian students abroad at the time when the U.S President was busy asking for jobs for his countrymen here in India.
55 companies have registered in Pilani for recruitment and 20 are waiting to visit the campus. 100% placements are expected to be achieved by the end of November 2010.

Source: TOI

Indian students to be attracted by Canadian universities

Presidents of 15 Canadian universities are on a seven-day visit to India. The objective is to attract students from India which is considered as the second fastest growing nation in the world.

The two countries have signed a memorandum of understanding on higher education during the Prime Minister’s visit there last year. This is regarded as the biggest mission by Canadian educational institutions since then. It is estimated that more than 150,000 Indian students go abroad for higher education every year but only 3000 students go to Canada for the purpose of higher education. Only a fraction of Indian students got enrolled in the universities of Canada last year.

The foreign students pay more than $15,000 as fees which can amount to around $6.5 billion. This means the same amount can be pumped into the Canadian economy if more and more students get enrolled in their universities.

The Canadian education mission would be travelling to Pune and Delhi. All this has been organized by Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC).  The meetings would be held with the administrators of the educational institutions of public and private sector. All this is expected to create special ties between the two nations.  

There would be roundtable with Indian university presidents Human Resource minister Mr Kapil Sibal and his Canadian counterpart would be attending the roundtable.  
The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) are also organizing the higher education summit and this Canadian mission would also participate in it.

Before leaving for India, AUCC president Paul Davidson said, “This mission is a way for us to get to know India and its needs more deeply - and to make sure that when Indians think of research and higher education, they think of us.”


He also said that the educators and business people should be aware that Canadian universities would like to build partnerships with Indian universities. All this can strengthen the bonds between the countries apart from bringing about advancement in research collaborations.



Source: EconomicTimes 

2 Top Indian Institutes Become Partners in Leadership Training with Yale University

It was announced by the Yale University last month that a partnership would be formed with two of India's top management and engineering institutes. It would be done to train Indian university leaders on the practices in academic administration and institutional management in the United States. Its partners would be the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur, in the north, and the Indian Institute of Management in Kozhikode, in the south.
The Indian government would be financing the project with $1-million.


India's government wants to modernize the higher-education system here as it not able to meet the country's growing educational demands. Kapil Sibal, the minister in charge of higher education, has been trying to reform our ongoing educational system and partnership with foreign universities would help in achieving the objective.


The Director of the institute in Kanpur endorsed the move and said that there would be a need foe high quality academic leadership would be critical in the wake of expansion of the educational system here. He appreciated the work done by the Yale University in this area. The training programs are expected be open to public-university administrators from all parts of India.


The program would start from January and would be developed by the three institutions. It is a five-year arrangement which will be based in two Centres of Excellence for Academic Leadership and would be financed by the education ministry.


There would be research on higher education by these three institutions. Workshops and seminars would be organized in areas of academic administration and leadership. All this would aim at supporting the expansion of Indian higher education.


Yale has pledged $30 million two years back in order to develop deeper ties with India by offering more courses and faculty expertise, expansion of recruitment of students and partnership in research. demonstrated an interest in working in India. Two years ago, the university pledged $30-million from its endowment to develop deeper ties to India through more course offerings and faculty expertise, expanded student recruitment and research partnerships. This amount has increased to $75 million now.


There is also a possibility of developing 14 “Innovation Universities” by the Yale University in India.
Source: Chronicle.com

Avenues for the opening of foreign universities coming up with Obama’s visit


Indian students might be getting the advantage of obtaining a degree from an American university now as many U.S university officials are also visiting India along with the U.S President Obama. These universities might get permission from Indian government to set up their bases in India.


Representation from Boston University, Arizona State University and Rugers University are accompanying President Obama. Boston University is ranked 56 and Rutgers University is ranked 64 on the on the National Universities Ranking on U.S. News.


Though a “foreign university bill” has been passed in March 2010 which allowed the foreign universities to set up their campuses in India and foreign direct investment has also been allowed here but these institutions are not allowed to grant their degrees here.


India has the largest student population and a severe shortage of educational institutions, the opening up of these universities would definitely prove to be quite beneficial. IIMs and IITs are the top most institutions here but have limited amount of seats which deprive many students of such a kind of quality educational facility.


Opening of foreign universities is expected to bridge this demand and supply gap.


According to statistics there is a need of about 600 universities and 35,000 more colleges over the 12 years to enrol 30 percent of its potential students in the country.


It is expected that quality institutes would be drawn to the huge population and revenue models.


For-profit institutions like Apollo Group and DeVry Inc are looking towards the Indian markets for acquisitions in higher education sector here.


Source: IBTimes.com

Indian businesses say they are making US jobs 


The world’s largest democracy i.e. India is said to be creating jobs in the U.S rather than taking them away. And all this is happening despite of the fears over the impact of outsourcing. This statement was given by a leading Indian business group. 

During his visit to India, US President Barack Obama focused on increasing US export opportunities and said that there was a need of creating much-needed jobs which could erase their 10-percent unemployment rate back at home.

The secretary-general of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Amit Mitra stated in clear terms that it was wrong to think that jobs in U.S were being robbed by India due to outsourcing.

Mitra said, "We are creating jobs in the country (US) in the thousands”. He was of the opinion that investments coming from India have the potential to generate more and more employment in U.S.

 India's investments in the U.S between 2004 and 2009 were around $5.5 billion. It was done in new offices, plants and equipment. Acquisitions amounted to $20 billion. 

U.S is a favoured destination for Indian foreign direct investment. It was done in information technology, media and entertainment sectors. 

According to the U.S government figures, Indian companies stood at the second place as the fastest-growing investors in the United States. The United Arab Emirates, being the first one, supported 57,000 jobs. 

Mitra said that fears of U.S about IT professionals losing their jobs would not go away so easily in the wake of outsourcing when the American workers were without employment. 

But there can be no denying in the fact that India also represented a vast potential export market which was capable of creating jobs in U.S.  


Source: Economic Times

SEBI for pay hike to staff; salaries may nearly double

SEBI has proposed to raise the salaries of it staff. There would be an annual payout of around 14.46 crores. The biggest beneficiaries would be the senior level employees. There would be 90% hike in their salaries.  
There were more than 600 employees in Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) at the end of last fiscal. There are around 500 officers of various ranks. Apart from this there are secretaries and other support staff.

There was a discussion at the SEBI board about the issues regarding higher investment limit. The issue for hike in pay scales was also discussed at the same time.

A memorandum was presented which said that no pay hike has been there since 2007 although RBI had accorded special allowances for the officers and a revision in the salaries during the period. It had earlier been decided by the SEBI board that the pattern of the scale of salaries would be according to the pattern of RBI.

Since RBI has again revised the pay scales and allowances, SEBI has also proposed to extend the benefits of this revision with effect from NOV 1, 2007.

A special grade allowance has also been proposed to be implemented by SEBI like the one introduced by RBI in 2005 and 2007.


The top grade officers are expected to get salaries as high as Rs 67000 per month which is Rs 35600 at present. There would be an increase of even more than 92% for senior most officers. Junior level officers would be getting a rise from Rs 23185 to Rs 35313.
Staff allowances on medical, briefcase and telephone reimbursement has also been increased since last year. The benefit of reimbursement on family health check up and Eye refraction Test is also provided.

All this was being planned since quite a long time. The estimated total revenue of SEBI for the financial year 2010-2011, is at about Rs 155.13 crore, as against revised revenue expenditure of Rs 766.5 crore in the previous fiscal. This is mainly due to the rise in expenditure due to the revised salaries.

The proposed salary of the next Chairmen of SEBI is Rs 3 lakh per month.  

2.3 Lakh jobs to be created : Ernst & Young  


It is estimated that 2.3 lakh jobs would be created by in six sectors namely Healthcare, Realty, IT/ITeS, Banking, Education & Training, Manufacturing, Financial Services and Insurance during the last three months of 2010.


This has been made possible due to the recovery of domestic economy. Headcount in local industries is expected to rise in the coming months. All this was reported by Ernst & Young's Partner, National Head and EMEIA Leader to PTI. 


It is projected that 60,000 jobs would be generated in the healthcare industry in fourth quarter of 2010 whereas 50,000 would be generated in Real estate and IT/ITes sector. The healthcare industry shows such a bright future due the demand and supply gap. Moreover investments in this sector are also increasing. Another factor that has contributed in the growth of this sector is the rising number of government schemes.



30,000 jobs would be generated in Education & Training and 20,000 people would get jobs in BFSI sectors.



A bullish recruitment trend is seen in public sector companies which can speed up the hiring process in the last few months of present year.

Jobs are growing in the banking sector because there new branches are being opened up and the retired staff is being replaced.



The worth of the education market in the country is expected to be around $40 billion. Thus this sector also has great employment potential.  


Source: Times of India   

400 people in India to be hired by a British hospitality chain

There is good news for those qualified in hotel management courses. Nearly 400 people in India are to be hired by the British hospitality chain Premier Inn. The chain is known for its budget hotels. This hiring will be done in a little over three years. All this is being done as a part of its expansion efforts.
  
At present there are 70 employees in the country but around 470 would be needed till 2013.
This expansion will come out in different cities. There is one in Bangalore at present. Another one is expected to be opened in New Delhi in few months that is around January. For the New Delhi hotel they would need around 8 qualified people for the recruitment process is in full swing. This was told by the head pf Human Resources Department of Premier Inn India.

Most of the employees at present are recruited in Bangalore where the operation began in 2009.


Total of 900 hotels are going to be set up here till 2009 for which 407 employees would be required.


Extensive training programs for the newly employed staff are available which would help them to understand the working of industry in a better way. There are even cross training opportunities available for the staff. It can help them in acquiring experience in different areas of working with in the same company.

There are around 590 hotels in Dubai which Premier Inn has opened apart from India and U.K. 


Source: Economic Times

Lack of quality maths teachers, PhDs

There is a serious dearth of high quality mathematics teachers and PhDs in various engineering colleges all over Bangalore, metros, Tier II and III cities in India. There is need of these professionals to improve the standards of teaching and research to match with the global standards. 

 

A professor and researcher, Rangarajan, from IISC told TOI that India was lacking behind in maths and things should improve urgently. He took stock of the status of mathematics in universities and colleges in India post-the World Congress of Mathematics held in Hyderabad. This event was an important one since it could find the areas where improvements had to be taken. To make the things better it was said that more students should take interest in mathematics. Rangarajan said that the research institutions and universities lacked proper faculty in mathematics and this was the reason that a world class research and teaching quality could not be attained. Even the engineering colleges face the same situation and moreover research activities are also not given priority by the colleges.

Talking to TOI, Rangarajan said, “There is serious lack of research mathematicians working on applied and industrial problems. There is a crying need for such persons".  

Though sufficient amount of grants are available for research work in the subject concerned, but there is a lack of student input. Special fellowships with higher stipend should be given to the PhD students in order to motivate them.  

Career prospects in mathematics are quite bright and plenty of jobs are available. The students and the parents should be made aware of these opportunities to make them interested in the subject.

 
Mathematics being an interdisciplinary subject is closely related to physics, biology and engineering sciences. Financial services, data mining companies and research labs of companies like Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, GE and GM need professionals in mathematics.

India becoming global hub for healthcare

The Executive Director of Apollo Hospital enterprise, Shobana Kamineni, in her keynote address at the annual convocation of the Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI) Centre for Healthcare Management said that there are number of job opportunities in the health care sector in India. Since we have a population of around a billion people, there is an expected increase in 15 million jobs in this sector.

Certificates were presented to 29 students of the third batch of PG Diploma in Hospital Management at the convocation ceremony.

In her address Shobana said, "Arogyasri has thrown up a big challenge of catering to about 4 crore people resulting in coming up of more and more private hospitals".

At the moment India needs 1.5 million doctors and 3 million nurses which hints at the vast investment potential in medical education,’’

ASCI court of governor chairman presided over the programme. He was of the opinion that the value of the programme has now been recognized by the market and hospitals. And due to this the healthcare professionals would easily be absorbed in the jobs.

As compared to the earlier times when people used to visit foreign countries to get treated, now the traffic is increasing towards our country for the medical treatment. Our medical expertise is one of the best at present.

So it is expected that India is soon going to be a global hub in the healthcare sector.
 
Source: Express Buzz

Non-techie jobs to be reserved for Indians

The Union home ministry has issued guidelines stating that non- technical jobs would be reserved only for Indians. This step is expected to keep the foreigners away from local jobs here.

A labour ministry circular was nullified by an order of the home ministry, which had given the permission to one per cent foreigners among the total workforce to work in any project with a minimum of five and maximum of 20 people.

According to the guidelines given by the home ministry, “An employment visa is granted to a foreigner if the applicant is a highly skilled and/ or qualified professional, who is being engaged or appointed by a company/organisation /industry/ undertaking in India on contract or employment basis”.

Apart from this it is stated that foreigners would not be able to get employment visa if qualified Indians are available. This also stands true in case of even ordinary jobs like secretarial/clerical jobs.

Further it has been said that the foreign national who has been sponsored for an employment visa should be getting a salary in excess of $25,000 per year.

Opposing the move a Delhi based human resources and performance support consultancy firm said that such things can work against ideals of globalization. It said that we were doing the same things as the American government which had imposed restrictions on the BPOs here.

The floor limit on earnings would not apply to ethnic cooks, language teachers (other than English) and staff working for embassies/high commissions in India.

Skilled and qualified professionals would be able to clear their visa applications by the Indian missions. Moreover managerial and technical experts would also be given visas in case such personnel are unavailable here.

The move proves that India is becoming a destination for both skilled and unskilled manpower from across the growth. All this has been made possible due to the increasing growth rate of the economy. This move is being regarded as a protective approach to growing labour movement towards India

The move is in line with international practices since U.S also gives visas only to the skilled professionals from abroad. Singapore never grants visas for unskilled workers. So the guidelines are a welcome step from the Indian perspective.

Source: Mail Today

India to see highest employee churn

The Ma Foi Randstad Workmonitor conducts a quarterly review of "mental mobility status" of employees, that is their readiness to change jobs. It was conducted amongst the workers in countries in Europe, Asia Pacific and the Americas. It is basically an index which is based on the replies on two questions regarding their intention to change jobs. The first question was about changing the present employer for a comparable job in the next six months. The second one was related to changing the current employer for some different job/profession in the next six months.   

The results of the survey show that Indian employees got better during the economic crisis. They could work differently and this revealed their innovative tendencies. The crisis in the economy served as an opportunity for Indian employees. The rate of their development is quite high, higher than what the Chinese said with a score of 64 percent.

But Chinese employees were at an advantageous position since they got the facility of a structured training last year (71%). In India this percentage was only 61%.
These studies reveal an important fact that the Indian employees could make a better use of this downturn, better than the Chinese employees. Indian employees were able to find out innovative methods to get jobs and hence they could grow professionally.

Eight out of 10 Indian employees surveyed said they were ready to move to another company which would help them in getting better and quicker development prospects.

According to the Chief Executive of Ma Foi Randstad (India and Sri Lanka), the survey shows that there is an increase in the mobility rate and people focussed more on promotion in the workforce. This shows that the working force could be contended with those organizations that are in a better position to take care of their developmental plans.  

Major hiring trends seen in Steel Sector 


The steel industry in India is witnessing a continuous growth. The production is increasing along with the price rise.


Economic Times reports that career opportunities are rising especially at the senior and executive level.


India is the second largest steel market in the world. China stands at the first place. Both public and private sector companies are coming up in our country. A job shift by the top level executives, directors and CEOs of the industry is has been witnessed recently. Some of them are Brahma Nand Singh, former CEO of Brahmani Steel; Raman Madhok, formerly joint managing director of JSW Steel; T P Rao, former executive director of Rashtriya Ispat Nigam and Bhairava Nath Singh, former MD of SAIL, Rourkela. 

There can be increased hiring too in the sector after a slump of 3 years. There can even be stock options for the existing employees.  

A lot of changes are seen in the steel industry. There is rise in demand as the exports from China have been reduced. According to the experts, the reduction in steel production in China can be attributed to the fact that the cost of electricity has risen there. Moreover many steel units have been shutdown due to pollution control measures there.  


This has benefited the steel makers here. Lowering down of the prices of raw materials and higher prices for the final product has increased the profit margins of the producers. These companies are flushing with money thus finding out ways to expand the production. All this has led to the rise in hiring trends here. There is great demand of the key talent and expertise in this sector.  


Source: Economic Times

IT India is hiring  


Nasscom has said that the software companies like Tata consultancy services, Infosys and Wipro are expected to hire more than 90,000 professionals. Last year only 20,000 professionals were hired. 

HR people are working round the clock for this biggest ever job creation spree by these IT giants. 


The staff strength was the highest in the month of September. Growth rate of this strength is over 50 percent which is the highest hiring growth recorded in the IT sector since recession. There has been an increase in IT hiring by 20-22 percent between August and September.

IT industry had suffered a serious set back due to the recessionary trends earlier which led to non recruitment of IT professionals.  

But the future seems quite promising for the IT industry and IT professionals. New projects and fresh recruitments show a promising future ahead. Skills are being stocked and training is being imparted in advance for the anticipated new contracts coming their way. 
More projects are being sent to India by the companies like JPMorgan and Citibank etc. So the companies like IBM and Accenture are hiring more and more professionals. There is kind of competition for hiring and retaining the qualified personnel now.

Innovation is seen in the hiring programmes of these companies. Infosys and EDS-Mphasis are also recruiting back the staff which they had laid off during the recession.
Some of these employees are even getting better salary as compared to the previous times. This is considered a good step by the HR managers since it would relieve them of the interviewing process. 

“Green Channel” initiative has been launched by Infosys. It is done to get applications from around 350 professionals who had lost their jobs last year. NetApp, a computer storage vendor based in California, has hired back almost half of its staff.   

Stipend for engineering, science students hiked by 33pc


Good news comes for research scholars across the country. The monthly stipend of students in the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and other central science and engineering schools would be increasing by 33 percent. This has been announced by the Human Resource Development Ministry.

All institutions have been informed this decision. This move is expected to make postgraduate studies and research in sciences and engineering become more attractive and lucrative for the students.

This significant hike will benefit the students from the IITs, the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, the Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISERs), the National Institutes of Technology (NITs) and the Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs).

A letter has been sent to the HRD ministry to the Directors of the institutions stating that these revised rates stipend would also apply to other government and government aided institutions which are given funds by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and the University Grants Commission (UGC).

This stipend had now been increased to Rs.16,000 from Rs !2,000 for the post graduate students who passed B.Tech from IITs with cumulative grade point average of above 8 and those who cleared GATE exams. Also, PG degree holders in basic sciences and students who have qualified in the National Eligibility Test (NET) will now be given Rs.18, 000 a month will be given to P.G degree holders in basic sciences and those who have qualified in the National Eligibility Test. The amount will be given to them till their fifth year of Ph.D. research.

PG degree holders in engineering will also get Rs.18, 000 a month for the first two years of research. It will be Rs.20, 000 a month for the next two years. 

The 10 fastest job-creating cities in India

A study on 'Job Trends in the Four Metros' by Assocham has analysed the trend of job openings in 60 cities and 32 sectors during the period April-August 2010. This was reported by PTI.

The share of four major metropolitan cities of India in job creation was found to be 57.22 of the total sample size. 


According to the secretary general of Assocham, the jobs are being created at all levels. University placements have again started and this positive trend is expected to continue for another 6 months.

The fastest job-generating city came out to be Delhi-NCR among the four major metropolitan cities in India. It has shown a growth of 34.27 per cent in employment generation during the period of April-August this year.

As per the study NCR is the most prominent employment destination for the aspirants and has the major share of 34.20 per cent.

The top job creating sector came out to be Agriculture and allied services in NCR with a growth of 314.29 per cent since last year. At the second and third positions are Textile (159.83 per cent) and real estate (158.51 per cent) respectively. The infrastructure and aviation sectors are ranked fourth and fifth.

Mumbai stands at second place as far as total vacancies offered are concerned. Here a academics offered largest number of vacancies. Around 59.47 per cent of the openings belonged to the education sector in the last 5 months. IT sector created maximum number of jobs as compared to the four metros.

Chennai is ranked third. The IT and IT-enabled services accounted for 57.07 per cent of the total job openings, followed by IT/hardware sector. The share of IT/hardware sector has been 54.93 per cent of overall openings in four metro cities. The engineering segment has the share of 54.29 per cent in the total employment generation in the sector. This has been attributed to the rise in demand of engineering goods due to the ongoing CWG games.

Then comes Kolkata, with a share of 4.19 per cent in generation of employment opportunities. Export-import sector has shown a trend of recovery which in turn has led to the growth of manufacturing sector. But telecom, FMCG, banking and logistics sectors have marginal decline in job creation during the period.

In the Tier-II cities, Pune has emerged as the highest employment-generating city out of all the other tier-II cities of the country. It had the maximum share of 19.5 per cent of the total jobs created in all the tier-II cities. IT, banking, education and automobiles were the main sectors where employment opportunities were created.

The share of Lucknow was 14.3 percent. It came out to be the second largest in the tier-II cities for employment generation. At the third place was Pondicherry, with 10.5 percent as its share.

Among the other tier-III cities, Ranchi had the largest share of 16.8 per cent, followed by Mangalore and Mysore.

The top five sectors that created the maximum jobs in Ranchi were energy, construction, metals, electronics and telecom. Mangalore stood at the second place with 14 per cent share of the jobs. Mysore came out to be the third fastest job-creating city amongst tier-III cities. 

Rs 1,500 Crore Tech Park In Gurgaon

It is being planned by the Dutch Haryana Business Consortium (DHBC) and Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (HSIIDC) to build Rs 1500 crore Tech Park near Gurgaon in Haryana. Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (HSIIDC) has a stake of 10 percent in the project. 


The Haryana State Infrastructure and Industrial Development Corporation (HSIIDC) and the Dutch Haryana Business Consortium (DHBC) signed a Statement of Interest i.e. SOI on October 10, 2006 at Amsterdam in Netherlands.  


The Haryana Investment Promotion Board has already granted clearance in 2008. It was done after a techno economic study. The project could not start because of the global recession. But now the company plans to launch the project at the earliest since the recession is over. 


Three locations have been suggested by the Haryana government for the project, which will be spread over a maximum area of 500 acres. DHBC, after technical surveys, would be giving final consent and final report will be submitted by 31st of December. 


DHBC is talking to various western European companies such as Netherlands-based processed foods manufacturer HAK Agro Foods, German telecom operator T Mobile, Royal Friesland Foods, a Netherlands-based dairy company and Royal Hass Konning, a European engineering and Design Company. It wants them to set up their units here. 


So with the coming of all these multi national companies it is expected that there will be an increase in the employment opportunities in the region with over development of the area.