141599 SIP myths you must know!

Growth without jobs is like having butter without the bread – there is no platform to share the goodies with. It is precisely for this reason that everyone is looking out for job creation possibilities as the economy is showing some early signs of shattering the shackles of the pandemic.

On March 8, leading chamber of commerce FICCI unveiled the results of a survey conducted in Q3 among its members. It announced a business confidence that is highest in the past one decade, recording the most powerful endorsement so far of the government’s claim that the economy is on the recovery path.

Recording an improvement on the employment generation scenario, the survey noted, “About 35% respondents were optimistic about better hiring prospects over the next two quarters (up from 22% stating the same in the previous round).”

 There is another indication in the survey that might have a positive fallout on the hiring possibilities.

|“The proportion of respondents citing ‘higher to much higher’ investments in the coming six months witnessed an upswing in the current survey when compared to the previous round. 31% participants said that they foresee higher to much higher investments over coming six months as compared to 19% participants stating likewise in the previous round,” read the report.

The macro constraints to job creation are mostly due to factors that are almost completely beyond the private sector to address – lack of demand for consumption.

“… even though demand conditions have been improving according to the results of our latest survey, yet over half of the participating companies continued to report subdued domestic demand situation as a major constraint. Around 56% of participating companies cited weak demand as a bothersome factor for their business in the latest round. Even though this is the lowest in about nine quarters, nonetheless the proportion of participating companies affected by it remains significant.”

The CSO figures of the economy released in the last week of February put private consumption expenditure in the October-December quarter at (-)2.3% though it was an improvement from (-)11% when it had contracted by 11%.

The implication is clear – if demand picks up in the economy, it might provide some tailwind to employment generation.

The chamber has also listed out eight challenges to look out for in 2021. Some of these are high input costs, high logistics cost and credit costs. Among these it has also mentioned “availability/retention of skilled workers.”

According to a recent report by Deloitte India compiled after surveying 400 companies, 92% of the respondents said that they are going to offer increment to their employees, the average rate being 7.2%.

The sectors surveyed by Deloitte are consumer products (7.6% increment), financial services (7.3%), information technology (8.6%), information technology-enabled services (7.6%), life sciences (9.2%), manufacturing (6.8%), services (5.9%). The obvious surprise in the pack being the services sector that was hit as a whole by the pandemic the most.

Even in the Q3 figures of the economy released by the government, the services sector (trade, hotels, transportation, communication, services related to broadcasting) continued to be one of the worst-hit, recording a contraction of 7.7%.

At the top end of the job pyramid, IIT Bangalore and IIT Kharagpur have already reported encouraging campus placements.

Job portals such as Naukri and Monster India too have reported rising hiring figures in certain sectors.

While Naukri JobSpeak index registered a growth of 22% in hiring in February 2021 compared to January 2021, Monster Employment Index recorded a growth of 6% over the same period.

Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy data stated though the unemployment rate of 6.9% in February 2021 was slightly higher than 6.5% in January 2021 but it was a whole lot better than 9.1% in December.

Moreover, the February 2021 unemployment rate was lower than 7.6% that was the average for the period between July 2020 and February 2021.

The February 2021 unemployment rate was also lower than the pre-lockdown level of 7.8% recorded in February 2020.