SMEs hire sacked staffs of top firms at lower salaries

By siliconindia   |   Monday, 06 April 2009, 17:52 IST   |    1 Comments
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SMEs hire sacked staffs of top firms at lower salaries
New Delhi: Finding experienced employees at a salary even below their previous package is now getting much easier for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), as sacked employees of big downturn-hit companies are queuing up for jobs in small companies with 30 to 50 percent salary cut, reported The Economic Times. At a time when large firms frequently show door to many employees due to the bad business outlook, SMEs and start-up companies are taking advantage of this moment by hiring talented staff of big firms who are either laid off or asked to leave the firm, at lower salaries. In the past three months, Premier Shield, a medium-sized security solutions company has hired 12 executives at middle and senior managers from the likes of Unitech, Vishal Retail, Nucleus Software, The Park Hotels and Trident Hotels, all big names in real estate, retail, IT and hospitality sectors. The company hired these employees at salaries that are 30-50 percent lower than what they drew in their previous companies "It's a good situation for us as these executives come with experience and well networked in big companies to help us grow our business," said SK Sharma, Group Director (HR) of Premier Shield. Some of the beneficiaries of this phenomenon also include Amada, a Japanese equipment manufacturing company, IMS, a coaching institute and the Federation of Indian Micro. For instance, Amada has hired 4-5 such professionals in the last two weeks with four years of experience from companies that are over Rs 10,000 crore in size. These people have come at a 60 percent lower salary. According to the analysts, there's a clear trend of people across levels and sectors eyeing the SMEs. They are shunning bigger brands as they see signs of a bleak future, either because of shelved projects or cost cutting measures. Consequently, they are searching for firms that are still growing.