Unaffected by the economic slowdown, employment in India has witnessed a growth of over 3.15 lakh between July and September last year, topping the 23 lakh job creation over the last three years. The rise in employment was recorded particularly in eight sectors - textiles and apparels, leather, metals, automobiles, gems and jewellery, transport,IT, BPO, handloom and powerloom, according to a government survey released today.

The growth in this quarter has been maximum in the IT and BPO sector, which generated an additional employment of 2.04 lakh followed by an increase of 0.42 lakh in textiles including apparels, 0.38 lakh in metals, 0.22 lakh in automobiles, 0.09 lakh in handloom and powerloom, 0.07 lakh in gems jewellery. The information for the twelfth quick employment survey covering the period from July to September, 2011 has been collected from 2,215 units and establishments by covering 21 centres spread across 11 states and UTs.

The current survey was to assess the impact of economic slowdown on employment in India. The net addition of 23.58 lakh estimated employment has been registered in these sectors during the period of October, 2008 (first survey) to September, 2011 (twelfth survey)in the series of “Quarterly Quick Employment Survey in Affected Sectors” conducted by the Labour Bureau of the Ministry of Labour and Employment. The overall employment in these sectors has increased by 3.15 lakh during the current quarter. “The upward trend in employment has been continuously maintained since July 2009. During the quarter July to September 2011, employment has increased in respect of all sectors except Leather and Transport where there was a marginal fall,” a release issued by the ministry said. Source

Entrepreneurs no longer need to gloss over their unsuccessful attempts at seeding the fourth apple of consequence in human history. A clutch of IT and BPO companies is increasingly hiring professionals who have been there, not done that.

Firms such as Infosys, Wipro, MphasiS and Capgemini realise that such entrepreneurs, or people who started their own businesses, have learnt to appreciate profit and the downside of risk the hard way, a valuable experience especially at a time economic growth is winding down.

“The demand for talent with entrepreneurial background in the IT and BPO companies has shot up in the past two-three quarters,” says Ajit Isaac, MD of Bangalore-based headhunter Ikya Human Capital Solutions. Mallinath Sengupta, head of enterprise-applications delivery at IT services company MphasiS, is a case in point. In 1999, he started two IT services ventures in Singapore with a former executive of General Electric.

The first focused on staff augmentation and transportation-centric solutions which did not scale up as desired, and the second was an online market place for crowd sourcing for IT programs. When none proved successful, Sengupta came back, joined Wipro and subsequently moved to MphasiS a year ago, where, he says, his experience is helping him scale up business. (more…)

Tata Consultancy Services plans to invest Rs 600 crore in phase one to set up a software development campus in Nagpur, Maharashtra.

The campus will be built in two phases, and the software outsourcing services provider plans to employ 8,200 people for IT and BPO services in the first phase. Phase two of the development will be of a similar size, TCS said on Monday.

TCS’ Nagpur campus will be located on a 54 acre property in MIHAN SEZ [Multi-modal International Cargo hub and airport] on the outskirts of the city, it said.

TCS shares were down 1.6% at Rs 1,128.50 on NSE in morning trade. Source

Tata Consultancy Services’ UK subsidiary Diligenta on Wednesday bagged a $2.2 billion (GBP1.37 billion) outsourcing contract, its second-largest order ever, from UK-based financial services company Friends Life, a provider of pensions, investments, and insurance.

The BPO contract, spread over 15 years, is one of the largest for Indian outsources and comes at a time when most of Indian technology companies are reporting a squeeze in business demand resulting out of economic crisis in Europe and overall slowing economic growth.

For TCS, the contract is one of the biggest and comes after a $2.5 billion contract in 2008 from Citigroup.

TCS expects this deal to boost its overall plan for non-linear growth. (more…)

After its announcement of below expectation results for the second quarter on Monday, Tata Consultancy Services shares crashed over 7% on Tuesday. India’s top software services exporter’s performance in Q2 has raised doubts across the Street.

However, Sandip Agarwal, IT analyst at Antique Stock Broking says the TCS results have ‘nothing negative’. “It is more of a quarterly variation rather than anything else,” he says, in an exlcusive interview to CNBC-TV18.

Further, Agarwal maintains that the present scenario is different from 2008, primarily because it was more sudden then and now it is something that has been built in and taken into account by the clients. “We don’t see much of a decline on the demand side or anything negative on the outlook side as well,” he adds. Source

The Indian IT industry posted an increase of 19 percent in its total revenue at Rs.4,38,296 crore ($96.1 billion) during financial year 2010-11, said a report by a research firm Saturday.

‘The growth is a significant bounce-back for the industry which recorded just 8 percent growth in 2009-10, in the wake of the global recession in 2009 and 2010, which made both global and Indian companies cut back on their IT spending,’ said the annual research report of industry journal Dataquest, the flagship publication of CyberMedia.

According to the report, exports accounted for 66.4 percent of the industry while the domestic market accounted for the remaining 33.6 percent in the period under review. (more…)

The global economic situation stemming from the downgrading of US’ sovereign rating will most certainly hit information technology enabled Services (ITeS), while the business process outsourcing (BPO) units run the risk of having to put on hold expansion plans or delay the additional foreign direct investments.

The downgrade, which has come amid signals of a possible recovery of the US economy, will have a bearing on the expansion and hiring plans of these two sectors and also affect the flow of investments to other sectors, such as real estate and modern retail, experts said on Monday.

The ITeS and BPO segments, which employ more than 50,000 youngsters in the city, have been seeing hectic hiring activity in the last few months as there is a strong hope of a global economic recovery. (more…)

Hexaware Technologies Limited, a leading global provider of IT, BPO and consulting services on Monday announced that the company has secured a $177-million contract for business intelligence, analytics, infrastructure management and BPO. The contract will last for five years.

Revenues from the deal are expected to accrue over next 4-6 quarters. The agreement has been signed with an existing US client. The deal consolidates Hexaware’s position in a multi-vendor scenario.

“Under this contract, Hexaware is expected to ramp the team up to a peak size of 600+ personnel operating under Dedicated Global Delivery Centers. It is envisaged that Hexaware will offer Information Technology (IT) & BPO services from 15 locations spread globally,” said Rajiv Pant, President and Head – America Operations, Hexaware Technologies Limited. (more…)

The two new commercial outfits in the city– the global outsourcing firm Capgemini, and the research company with offices in New York and Singapore, Netcribes – not only bodes well for the future of Gurgaon, but goes to show how the city still has enough potential to attract capital from all over the world.

The notion that Gurgaon is no more the preferred destination for business and IT firms venturing into India no longer holds water, and according to industry experts, the city’s true potential is far from realized.

According to the local BPO and IT community, despite the very evident shortcomings in terms of lack of infrastructure and proper governance, Gurgaon still scores above Noida when it comes to attracting commercial units. “Gurgaon already has a business-friendly environment and the city is home to a number of BPO and IT firms. So it is easy for the newcomers to fit into the system,” said Subinder Khurana of the NASSCOM Regional Council Haryana, and the president of the Millennium City Welfare Society. Source

IT and BPO companies are calling on the academe to improve the skills of graduates so they can qualify for middle-management positions.

“By 2016 we will need to hire about 50,000 mid-level managers. Can we provide that?” asked Monchito Ibrahim, Commissioner of Cyber Services Group, during the ICT and BPO Conference yesterday at the Radisson Blu Hotel

With Cebu gaining the 9th spot in Tholon’s global survey of Top 10 Emerged Outsourcing Destinations, locators are expecting more from it.

To meet such demands, the workforce has to be strengthened by improving fundamental skills of Cebu’s graduates to increase their employability. (more…)