Survey speak
IT, ITES leading job sectors, Punjab ahead in hiring confidence

Indian corporates are increasingly opting for temporary staffing and the IT and ITES sectors continue to be the top employment generators. This has been revealed by the Ma Foi Employment Survey (MEtS), January-March 2005, conducted by HR service provider Ma Foi Management Consultants. It studied employment activity of 2046 employers across 17 sectors in India.

The top hiring sectors for the current quarter are IT and ITES, followed by education, training and consulting. The MEI (Ma Foi Employment Index)—a measure of the pace of recruitment activity/ hiring needs of the employers— projection for the current quarter is 3.35 per cent, according to a Press release.

The Net Hiring Confidence (NHC), which captures the hiring intention or confidence level of the employer, projection for the current quarter is 85 per cent. The NHC level across industries is 82 per cent and across services 89 per cent.

Regionally, the highest confidence level in hiring is shown by north India followed by the South, the West and the East. Punjab and Himachal Pradesh showed 100 per cent NHC levels. The other states in the top five of the NHC index are Haryana, Goa and Chattisgarh, while the top five cities are Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Chennai. Among the top ten segments in the NHC are healthcare, ITES, IT, print, media and entertainment, pharma, education, training and consulting.

Temporary staffing through professional employer organisations (PEOs) is a trend fast catching up in India. Thus far, workforce leasing was a way out to meet short-term assignments of companies during peak periods or to replace 'sudden vacancies. The current trend has seen corporate houses going in for leasing for specialised requirements as well as non-core functional activities like office administration, technical support, accounts and finance, HR support, marketing and sales.

The top ten sectors that would use flexi staffing in this quarter include hospitality, print, media and entertainment, energy, education, training and consulting, telecom and IT. There was a clear projection of a 11.47 per cent increase in temporary staffing by the end of the present quarter.

Fair share at workplace

The advent of new 'equal opportunity areas' has changed the face of the workplace. A sector-wise split shows that there is a greater presence of women in the services sector as compared to product sectors. The top 5 sectors that have greater presence of women are healthcare, ITES, BFSI, education, training & consultancy, IT and textiles and garments.