Hiring Outlook Will Be Quite Optimistic For The Next 18 Months: Ajay Shah, VP, Teamlease Services

Ajay leads the Recruitment Services Business for TeamLease with focus on building the Recruitment Services foot print across all Industries and the strategic Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) Services.

Ajay Shah, VP and Head-Recruitment Services, Teamlease Services talks to BW Businessworld about hiring outlook, job market and diversity in workplace.  

What is the hiring outlook for employees in different sectors in the new financial year?

The hiring outlook will be quite optimistic for the next 18 months at least. There are more job creations and especially in the service and the manufacturing sector. We foresee more than 6 lakh new jobs creation for the year 2018 alone in sectors like Technology, e-commerce, SME and pharma alongside manufacturing and financial Services. Most of the jobs in manufacturing and assembling will be towards research and operations. With the new technology disruption, the demand would be for skills in artificial intelligence, cyber security, analytics and blockchain. Technology alone will create 2 lakh jobs.

What has been lacking in the job market; job creation or the skills in the job seekers?

While it is clear that India does not have job creation issue however, the talent pool needs to enhance their skills and abilities over the next 18 months. Campus hiring this year will see an up surge from about a 10-20 percent last year to 30 percent in FY 18. Especially in the technology side, where focus is on automation & digitalization, new skill like big data, analytics, Machine learning would be in demand and the pool for the same is short at this point.

How important is apprenticeship for job prospects for job seekers?

This is a good entry point for job seekers and the concept works earn while you learn. This has exposure to on-job learning and an opportunity for job creation. India had only 4 lakh apprentices and this is expected to grow 5 folds in the next few years. This has now the advantage post the amendments to the Act made in 2014 create an enabling environment. They make employer volunteers rather than hostages, they allow customised programs. India’s youth deserve 15 million apprenticeship opportunities and corporate India is willing. All that is needed is the regulatory space.

How has the job market changed with technology?

Optimism for the improving job market is due to the positive factors such as improvements in financial services and digital businesses; especially increase in investments in digitization, automation and conducive investment climate resulting in business growth.

The Indian IT industry is expected to add around 1.8 lakh to 2 lakh new jobs in 2018. In fact, the uptick in hiring is also because of new employers. Around 20 percent more employers are likely to hire in 2018.

The industry requires 50 percent more workforce equipped with digital skills. The growing opportunities in the digital technology arena including government initiatives like Digital India will add jobs in Digital technologies, AI and Robotics. In fact, Artificial intelligence (AI) alone will create 2.3 million jobs globally by 2020.

What are the top trends in recruitment industry? How important is diversity in workplace?

While AI & Machine Learning will be the next most sorted hiring trend, interviewing innovations like blind hiring, video interview platforms and virtual reality platforms. Today most of the hires are also interviewed through causal sittings.

Diversity will be amongst the most sorted trend in the recruitment industry. Corporate India has done enough to promote gender diversity however, now it should be inclusive of disabled, LGBT, religion and age diversity.