Indian firms snub NRI jobseekers

As the global slowdown regains momentum and analyst debate shifts to whether a double-dip recession is around the corner or we’re already in one, Indian expats in the Gulf, hoping to find a safety-net job back home if push comes to shove, may be in for a surprise.
 
For, despite the fact that the Indian economy has been growing, and with it the number of jobs available are on the rise, a latest survey points out that hiring of non-resident Indian (NRI) professionals has seen a sudden and sharp decline of 8 per cent in the July to September quarter this year.
 
According to the NRI Professional’s hiring trend survey conducted by MyHiringClub.com, the decline is largely due to a sharp, 21 per cent deterioration of NRI hiring activity in information technology (IT) and IT-enabled services (ITeS) sectors.
 
“An increasing number of NRI jobseekers continue to approach us to help them land a job in India,” said Rajesh Kumar, Founder and CEO, MyHiringClub.com, one of Asia & Gulf/Middle East’s leading recruitment tendering platforms.
 
He added that the recent decline in jobs offered to NRIs coincided with an increasing number of ‘desperate’ NRIs wishing to return to their home bases. “We saw an increase of between 25 and 30 per cent in NRI jobseekers last quarter. At least 30 to 35 per cent NRI professionals are desperately looking to come back their homeland,” he said.
 
The survey, conducted online between October 1 and 15, 2011, polled HR heads and top management of 432 corporate and 723 recruitment consultants about their hiring intentions and trends regarding NRIs in the present quarter vis-à-vis last year, as well as their views about the whole year.
 
“We saw a healthy hiring activity in NRI professionals at the beginning of the quarter, but suddenly, since last week of August, NRI recruitment activity declined sharply,” Kumar pointed out. “Overall, hiring activity is not as good as we had expected it to be at the beginning of the year,” Kumar added.
 
Within the Indian cities surveyed for the report, Delhi and adjoining national capital region (NCR) witnessed the maximum NRI hiring quarter-on-quarter while Bangalore, India’s IT hub, saw the worst decline in NRI hiring.
 
Among the industries surveyed, the pharmaceuticals and healthcare sector witnessed the maximum NRI hiring, at 31 per cent, up 2 per cent from the previous quarter, followed by automobile and manufacturing (29 per cent, up by 2 per cent from the previous quarter), telecom (26 per cent, up by 5 per cent) and FMCG (16 per cent, up 2 per cent).
 
On the other hand, IT & ITeS sector saw a sharp decline of 21 per cent in NRI hiring activity, from 39 to 18 per cent, followed by banking and financial sector (15 per cent, down 1 per cent) and business services (4 per cent, down 2 per cent).
 
Delhi/NCR saw the maximum NRI hiring (34 per cent, up 4 per cent over the previous quarter), followed by Mumbai (32 per cent, up 1 per cent). Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kolkata had seen negative NRI hiring activity in the quarter.

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