HR Headlines: Jan-09 (Part-4)

India Is Training Its Fresher Workforce
Despite low science and engineering graduation rates, India is rapidly becoming a global hub for R&D. A team from Duke University found that Indian firms are training their staff from scratch and bridging the skills gap. Technology majors such as HCL and Wipro increasingly hire from second- and third-tier colleges, and also arts and science schools. These companies have taken upon themselves to make these recruits profitable by training them. Most large firms have built their own dedicated learning centres. For instance, the Infosys Global Education Centre at Mysore can train 13,500 people at a time. New recruits at Infosys attend a 16-week session, which strengthens their technical, communications and management skills. Similarly, TCS provides seven months of training in computer programming, customer orientation and project management to its science recruits. The shortages in managerial talent are also made up by fostering talent from within.
Source: 24-07-08 www.livemint.com Compiled by Amresh Anjan

IT Industry Getting Younger By the Day
The India IT industry is focusing on freshers and young pass-outs stand a better chance of getting a job in the industry than their more experienced counterparts. Factors such as rising oil prices, high inflation growth, the sub-prime crisis and an economic slowdown in the US are prompting IT companies to clamp down on costs. Consequently, these companies are hiring freshers that settle for lower salaries leading to significant savings. Freshers can be hired at half or less the cost involved in getting an experienced person on-board. IT majors such as TCS, Wipro and Infosys are increasingly scouting for young guns. TCS plans to recruit 30,000-35,000 people this year, of which about 60% would be freshers and the remaining 40% those with experience. At Infosys, about 70% of the new hires would be fresh campus recruits. Also, the monopoly of IT graduates has been challenged with more and more companies hiring Bachelors of Science (BSc) graduates. With basic training, these graduates are able to handle roles of a system analyst or programmer. Also, starting salary for B.Sc. grads is around Rs 1.5 lakh against Rs 3 lakh-plus that engineers command. Wipro will hire 15,000 freshers and over 8,000 experienced people this year. Of the freshers, 30-40% would be BSc graduates and 50% engineering graduates.
Source: 19-07-08 www.dnaindia.com Compiled by Amresh Anjan

Financial Results of Info Edge (India) Ltd For Q1
Strengthening its position as the pioneer in the online business in India, Info Edge (India) Limited reported Net Profit after Tax of Rs. 129.73 million for the quarter ended 30 June 2008. Info Edge recorded Total income of Rs. 671.44 million compared to Rs. 519.63 million in the corresponding quarter last year (FY2007-08). Operating EBITDA at Rs. 167.29 million grew by 40.7% over the corresponding quarter of FY07-08. The company achieved a profit after tax of Rs. 96.68 million from operations in Q1 of FY08-09, a 39.9% growth over the corresponding quarter of FY07-08. The Other Income has come down by 25.8% at Rs. 40.21 million from Rs. 54.19 million in corresponding quarter of FY07-08. This decline is primarily for the reason that about one third of the investment portfolio has been moved into longer maturities where returns will be accounted for in the next financial year.
Source: 24-07-08 Our Bureau Compiled by Amresh Anjan

EPFO Free To Invest To Enhance Returns: FM
Finance Minister Mr P. Chidambaram has indicated that the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) may invest in high yielding instruments to enhance monetary returns for its over four crore subscribers. However, the minister has negated chances of increasing the interest rates on special deposit schemes (SDS), where the bulk of the EPF funds are parked. Instead, he said, the EPFO was free to withdraw the SDS money and invest it elsewhere, if it got better returns.
Source: 19-07-08 www.telegraphindia.com Compiled by Amresh Anjan

Slump In Net Manpower Addition Of IT Majors
For the quarter ended June 2008, the net manpower addition among the top four Indian IT services companies has seen a sharp climb-down, as compared with the year-ago quarter. TCS saw a manpower addition of 4,895 at the end of June’08 against 5,512 in June’07. For Infosys, the figures stand at 3,192 in June’ 08 against 3,730 in June’ 07. Worst hit was Wipro with net addition as low as 108 in June’08 against 5,225 in June’07. At Satyam, it was 651 at the end of June’07 against 2,716 a year ago. Collectively, the figures dipped from 17,183 in June’07 to 8,846 in June’08. The salary hikes have also been low across the IT sector this year.
Source: 21-07-08 www.thehindubusinessline.com Compiled by Amresh Anjan

Rising Poaching In The Auto Industry
The auto industry is witnessing a slowdown due to rising cost of finance and sluggish sales. Despite that, the industry is seeing an all-time high level of poaching among auto makers. With the entry and expansion of global auto companies in the Indian market, there is a rising demand for experienced high and medium level officials. Recently, German automaker Volkswagen lured away Mr KK Swamy from Toyota Kirloskar Motors Ltd, who has brought with him two more senior officials from Toyota — Mr K Takewala, head of quality control, and Mr Kalyan Kumar, head of regional sales. TVS Motor lost two high-ranking officials within a year. Threatened by the trend, some companies are mulling talks with rivals for non-poaching deals.
Source: 19-07-08 www.hindustantimes.com Compiled by Amresh Anjan

Top Level Appointments At Hexaware Technologies
Hexaware Technologies recently hired Mr Rajiv Pant from Wipro Technologies to assume the role of President, North America. Also, Mr P R Chandrashekhar has been appointed as Chief Executive Officer and Chairman replacing Mr Rusi Brij. Prior to joining Hexaware, Mr Chandrashekhar was President, Americas and Europe at Wipro. Other than these two, Mr Prateek Aggarwal has been roped in as Chief Financial Officer replacing Mr P K Sridharan. Earlier, Mr Aggarwal was Head of Finance of the software division of HCL Technologies.
Source: 25-07-08 Business India Compiled by Amresh Anjan

SBI Plans To Hire 3,000 Recovery Officers
Amid the displeasure expressed by the regulators and the judiciary on the high-handedness of agents hired by banks to recover loans, State Bank of India (SBI), is planning to hire 3,000 marketing and recovery officers. This is the second such recruitment drive in less than a year. The position of officer for its rural operations would have a contract period of two years. Apart from recovering loans, these officers would also promote the bank's products, conduct pre-sanctioned survey, file applications and verify the documents. Being the largest employer in the country’s banking space, SBI had a total 1,79,205 employees as on March 31, 2008.
Source: 24-07-08 www.business-standard.com Compiled by Amresh Anjan

Around 400 RIL Employees To Be Outplaced
After downscaling its fuel retailing business, Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) is looking to outplace around 400 employees. The 400 would mainly include sales and marketing executives, besides some finance executives, people manning oil pumps at retail stations, and employees of Reliance A1 Plaza, the retail-entertainment-dining establishments that are attached to the stations. RIL officials say that people in the company’s petroleum retailing business would be placed in other business operations within the company. Over the past three-four years, Reliance has hired around 1,800 people from consumer goods companies, banks and insurance firms for its fuel retailing business. In 2007, Reliance trimmed the number of employees in this business by around 500 and shifted them to Reliance Retail.
Source: 22-07-08 www.livemint.com Compiled by Amresh Anjan

IIT Mumbai Director Resigns
Mr Ashok Mishra, the Director of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Bombay, has quit to join US firm Intellectual Ventures in the month of September. Mr Mishra had submitted his resignation to the Ministry of Human Resource and Development. An alumnus of IIT-Kanpur, he was a professor of chemical engineering and fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Sciences. Mr. Mishra has been working with the institute for the last six years and had two more years to serve as director of IIT Bombay. His successor at IIT is still to be decided.
Source: 22-07-08 www.topnews.in Compiled by Amresh Anjan

Management Reshuffle At HSBC India
HSBC has appointed Mr Vikramaaditya as the Chief Executive Officer of HSBC Asset Management (India) Pvt. Ltd. He replaces Mr Sanjay Prakash who will take up a senior position within the HSBC Group. Joining the HSBC Group in 1998, Mr Vikramaaditya has held various key positions in cash management and securities services for HSBC in India. Prior to this appointment, he was Head of HSBC Securities Services for India. Mr Kapil Seth, until now head of Corporate Banking in South India, will assume Mr Vikramaaditya’s role in the company. Mr Seth joined HSBC in 1996 and has held positions across Personal Financial Services and Global Banking functions.
Source: 21-07-08 www.moneycontrol.com Compiled by Amresh Anjan

InfoGROUP Sacks Its Indian-Origin Chairman
US-based business and consumer database provider infoGROUP has sacked its Indian-origin founder Mr Vinod Gupta from the post of its Chairman. The sacking came as a result of a shareholder lawsuit against the company and a probe by the market regulator SEC. However, Mr Gupta would continue as the company’s CEO.
Source: 23-07-08 www.dnaindia.com Compiled by Amresh Anjan

Former SpiceJet Chief Joins InterGlobe
Mr Siddhanta Sharma, former Executive Chairman at SpiceJet has joined InterGlobe, a leading aviation and hospitality company. Based in Gurgaon, Mr Shrama will assume the role of Executive director (corporate affairs) at InterGlobe.
Source: 19-07-08 Business Standard Compiled by Amresh Anjan

Reva Electric Hires Former TVS Executive
Mr R Chandramouli, former Senior Vice President at TVS Motor, has joined Reva Electric Car Company as President of sales and marketing. In his new role, he will be responsible for strengthening Reva in India and non-European markets.
Source: 19-07-08 Business Standard Compiled by Amresh Anjan

Renault To Trim 5,000 Jobs
As the auto industry faces huge losses and dipping consumer demand, carmakers are adopting ways to cut costs. French car manufacturer Renault has decided to clamp down on its European workforce by 5,000 through voluntary redundancies. Renault has blamed the deteriorating economic outlook for these job cuts. Renault is witnessing weak sales in Spain, Italy and the UK. Apart from Renault, Ford and Daimler are also undertaking cost-cutting measures.
Source: 24-07-08 news.bbc.co.uk Compiled by Amresh Anjan

Northern Rock Appoints New CEO
Mr Gary Hoffman, the vice chairman of Barclays, has been appointed as the new Chief Executive of Northern Rock. Mr Hoffman will join in place of current Chief Executive Mr Andy Kuipers who will leave the lender after 20 years of service. Mr Kuipers is the final member of Northern Rock's original board to leave the bank following last year's crisis. 47-year old Mr Hoffman is a Cambridge University graduate. He joined Barclays in 1982 and has worked as Chairman of UK banking and Chairman of Barclaycard.
Source: 23-07-08 news.bbc.co.uk Compiled by Amresh Anjan

The Ogilvy Group Appoints Global CEO
Mr Miles Young, Chairman of Ogilvy and Mather Worldwide AsiaPacific, has been appointed global CEO of The Ogilvy Group. In his new role, he replaces Mr Shelly Lazarus who has led the company for 11 years. Mr Lazarus will continue as Chairman of the group. Mr Young has been running Ogilvy in Asia-Pacific for the past 13 years. He has built the group into the clear industry leader in India and China. The group is a strong player in Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand, and the creative powerhouse of Ogilvy’s Singapore hub.
Source: 23-07-08 www.livemint.com Compiled by Amresh Anjan

Morgan Stanley Recruiting Financial Advisers
Morgan Stanley is on a hiring spree and aggressively recruiting financial advisers, especially from Merrill Lynch and other rivals. At a time when Wall Street is reeling under a credit crisis, the bank is accelerating the expansion of its global wealth management business. With relative stability in the bank, it has added a net 250 recruits so far this year. Morgan Stanley ended May with 8,350 brokers, down from 8,429 at the end of November 2007. The drop was caused due to Morgan's sale of its Spanish brokerage, which had 233 advisers.
Source: 24-07-08 news.yahoo.com Compiled by Amresh Anjan

US Jobless Claims Escalate With Weak Housing Market
According to US Labor Department reports, the number of newly laid-off people filing for unemployment benefits in the country jumped to 406,000 last week, a rise of a seasonally adjusted 34,000. Amid a weak economy and poor housing scenario, employers across industries are cutting jobs. With increased lay offs and new jobs being hard to find, the buying momentum in the market is also very low. Weak housing and job outlook is likely to affect the upcoming presidential elections too.
Source: 24-07-08 news.yahoo.com Compiled by Amresh Anjan

Management Reshuffle At Citigroup
Mr Michael Klein, a former head of investment banking and a 23-year veteran of Citigroup, is leaving as part of the latest management shakeup under Citigroup Chief Executive Mr Vikram Pandit. In March, Mr Klein was named Chairman of investment banking group, known as the Institutional Clients Group, as well as Vice Chairman of Citi. Mr Klein was once considered a candidate to eventually become the company's Chief Executive. However, he is set to leave now. Mr Pandit hired Ms Teresa (Terri) Dial as global head of consumer strategy and CEO of consumer banking in North America. Ms Dial previously worked at Lloyds TSB Group Plc.
Source: 21-07-08 news.yahoo.com Compiled by Amresh Anjan

Qantas Airways To Prune 1,500 Jobs
Australia’s largest airline, Qantas Airways, has decided to slash 1,500 jobs worldwide and has dropped plans to hire 1,200 more. The airline is trying to cope with skyrocketing fuel costs. The cuts would amount to 4 percent of its total work force. About 1,300 jobs will be lost in Australia and the rest overseas.The airline would close call centers in Tucson, Arizona and London, causing the loss of 99 jobs there. Globally, carriers are facing a tough time and resorting to job cuts to stabilise costs.
Source: 19-07-08 Australia’s largest airline, Qantas Airways, has decided to slash 1,500 jobs worldwide and has dropp


Compiled by Amresh Anjan