'Firms to cut 25 percent jobs in next 10 days'

By siliconindia   |   Friday, 31 October 2008, 16:14 IST
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'Firms to cut 25 percent jobs in next 10 days'
New Delhi: Indicating further pressure on employees, trade body Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) foresees that more Indian companies would come up with lay off of nearly 25 percent workforce in the next 10 days to curb the ongoing financial crisis. As companies struggle to meet their target revenue they are forced to take lay off measures to contain costs. ASSOCHAM conceives that the job cuts would mainly across the steel, cement, construction, real estate, aviation, IT-enabled services and financial service sectors. "As a matter of fact, most of the corporates had desired to start lay-offs in a phased manner much before Diwali of 2008. But these were advised to defer their restructuring after Diwali on humane ground reasons," said Chamber President Sajjan Jindal. The measures, he said, included denial of bonus and other incentives to reward performance, even as gifts were curtailed. "The assessment suggests that negative sentiments in the seven sectors could be turned into opportunity provided the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) discontinues its tight monetary policy and decreases the interest rates by at least three percent." The third alternative being devised by chief executives is to curtail perks at middle and senior management levels as slowdown will continue and businesses would have to stay on, the chamber said. Placement agencies in the meanwhile have already deferred their plans and well known business houses in crisis-ridden sectors have stopped requisitioning human resource requirement in view of current meltdown, the chamber added. "Job seekers are well aware of this factor which has created confidence crisis in most of them." Assocham said inflation was no longer an issue and what was more important in the present circumstance was to create jobs, which could come with increased acceleration in industrial production. "Manufacturing will receive fillip provided input costs fall, credit is made available to all sectors of Indian Inc and existing bottlenecks on way of industry are removed in terms of prototype and old bureaucratic processes."