63 percent Indian firms still hiring: Study

By siliconindia   |   Friday, 20 February 2009, 14:50 IST   |    23 Comments
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63 percent Indian firms still hiring: Study
New Delhi: At a time when the entire globe is in the grip of the job loss trend, a recent survey revealed a positive outlook for the Indian job market. Over 63 percent of the companies in the country are still open for fresh hiring and only 16 percent are considering downsizing. "Only 37 percent of the companies have frozen fresh recruitments," said Sandeep Chaudhary, Head of the performance and rewards consulting division at Hewitt India. The findings of the survey conducted by Hewitt Associates, also pinpointed that with a seven percent growth rate, India still has one of the highest salary hike structures in the world along with China. However, there is a dip in the average hike which has declined by about five percent from 13.3 percent last year to 8.82 percent for the current fiscal. Chaudhary also added that the 8.82 percent figure was reached at in December and January - when the survey was conducted - when many companies were in the process of revising their respective appraisal structures, due to which a further 1-1.5 percent hike in the structure was possible. A sectoral comparison shows that despite the economic downturn, sectors that cater directly to consumers, such as FMCG, consumer durables and telecom, have a positive outlook and are projecting among the highest salary increases. The pharma industry has the highest salary increases. Given the economic downturn, over 90 per cent of organisations are projecting a reduction in bonus payouts as a result of business performance falling below expectations. Realty and infrastructure firms were kept out of the scope of the survey completely, considering the 'dismal performance' of these sectors would have kept the pay hike projections to nil or even negative.