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Job portals feel the pinch, issue job-cuts
By siliconindia
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Monday, 22 December 2008, 23:15 IST |
2 Comments
New Delhi: It's not just graduates and IT professionals who are feeling the effects of the economic slowdown. Job portals are feeling the heat of the global downturn, with companies from varied sectors of the Indian industry, either deferring or postponing their recruitment activities, lending it a paradox-like touch.
Pegged at a market value of 350 million rupees, and employee strength of about 12,000, the job portal market had witnessed a robust growth rate of 50 percent, year after year, until the sudden, recent change of events. "Job-postings across sectors specially IT-ITeS (IT enabled services) and BFSI (Banking, Financial services and Insurance) have fallen by 50-60 per cent over the last few months. We have postponed our business ramp ups as client renewals are not happening," said Anand R Iyer, CEO, Jobstreet.com, which incidentally, had hired 25 people last year, but has put-off all such activities till March next year.
Naukri and Timesjobs, some of the biggest players in the job-portal industry, are not looking at any lay-off plans in the near future. "Small lay-offs are happening in the company but they are at the administration level. There are no retrenchments for people at the operational functions level," Iyer added.
However, some feel that this was waiting to happen, as job-portals aren't any different from any other sector, thereby impacting their business as well. "In fact, the slowdown has impacted every segment of the Internet industry and job-portals are a part of it. This could lead to an increased usage of multiple sites for the people to float their resumes," feels Sanjay Tiwari, Director, Juxt Consultants.