Hiring to remain subdued for next two quarters: ASSOCHAM

This subdued hiring is more in telecom, banks, NBFC, IT, realty and infrastructure sector.

The hiring prospect in the private sector is to remain subdued till beginning of fiscal 2018-19, ASSOCHAM has predicted. Most of the companies are working towards rationalisation of the costs, and so are hiring less.

This subdued hiring is more in telecom, banks, NBFC, IT, realty and infrastructure sector. When the PSUs Banks are recapitalised, they would bring down their employee cost to their operation ratio and fresh hiring by these banks will also come down. SBI after the merger has reduced its employee base by 10,500.

Most of the companies are focused towards deleveraging, consolidating, exiting from the non-core businesses and achieving a lean and mean balance sheet. For the next quarter, the companies will be focused towards improving their margins and reducing their debt costs.

This means that, there will be no fresh hiring for the next two quarters, but eventually the hiring prospect will improve in the next fiscal. The firms would be prioritizing wage cost control in the short term however.

DS Rawat, secretary general, ASSOCHAM, says “Though the Moody’s upgrade has given a sentiment boost, the next two quarters will be challenging for the private sector. But things would then improve and some of the pain points of the present like high debt, slow consumer demand, should ease from April, 2018. In any case, barring any untoward event, the fiscal 2018-19 would be better than the current financial year.”