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00:00Hello and welcome. You're watching a special on NDTV Profit.
00:05Now, in a post that went viral on social media recently,
00:09it was being said that almost a third of all students from IIT Bombay,
00:14from the previous batch and the currently outgoing one, were struggling to find jobs.
00:19Now, eventually, the college did come out
00:22and clarify that only about 6.1 percent students from the previous batch are
00:28still looking for jobs for this year.
00:31It's said that placements are still an ongoing process and it's refused to give
00:35out numbers of the number of students it's managed to place so far.
00:39Still, the group of colleges we're talking
00:41about is pretty much India's answer to the Ivy League.
00:44And any such debate does throw light on the state of campus placements
00:51and fresher hirings this year. It's indeed been a challenging year.
00:56The job listings portal, Indeed, also has some data that indicates
01:01that fresher hiring has, in fact, been on a downward trend since the pandemic.
01:06Since December 2021, fresher job postings have declined by about
01:12eight and a half percent and job clicks have declined by almost about 34 percent.
01:17For more such trends, I'm in conversation
01:20with Mr. Sashi Kumar, the head of sales at Indeed India.
01:24So thank you so very much for taking time out for us today.
01:28Thank you so much. Pleasure being on this report.
01:31So, you know, to start with, I do want to get some sense of what
01:36fresher hiring has been, any insights you can give on that.
01:40We do know that according to a report put together by our team,
01:44it's been a little bit of a downward trend the past couple of years or so.
01:49What what are you making of the current year campus placements as well as
01:54fresher job listings on your portal?
01:57Is it looking up?
01:59So definitely it's been a challenging year, I think, in the last year because
02:05of the landscape that we saw develop both within India and abroad,
02:09we saw a decline in number of freshers being hired by companies.
02:14Multiple reasons.
02:15One, obviously, there was a decline in the number of open roles.
02:19They're looking, companies are looking for closer match in terms of skills.
02:23And sometimes there is a gap between the kind of skills that people bring
02:26and the skills that companies need.
02:28Plus, we are seeing increased
02:31use of technology within companies,
02:34which is which also contributed to what we saw in the last year.
02:39OK, all right.
02:40I do want to ask you how much of this has to do, like you mentioned,
02:44the global economy, the word hiring freeze appears to come up a lot
02:48in our conversation of late when we talk about campus placements as well
02:53as fresher hiring.
02:54So is it more to do with how
02:57the outlook in European companies is or,
03:02you know, the volatility or the uncertainty in the US economy?
03:06And the reason I'm asking that is because here in India, while some sectors,
03:11of course, are very closely linked to how the global economy performs,
03:15the Indian economy has been particularly resilient.
03:18So how does one sort of, you know,
03:22make sense of this juxtapositioning that's taking place?
03:26I think you're absolutely right.
03:28The Indian economy is doing fairly well.
03:30So this decline that we see in fresher
03:33hirings can be seen as a bit of a temporary setback because of multiple factors.
03:39Factor number one was overhiring during the pandemic years.
03:42Most companies, specifically in the tech world, overhired.
03:45And as you all know,
03:46that the tech companies make up a significant part of the campus
03:52hiring and the fresher hiring that happens in this country.
03:54So that has been one reason.
03:56Two, for a lot of the companies that are hiring for IT professionals,
04:00their major market is outside of India and Europe and in the US.
04:04And we saw a cooling off there and also a reduced
04:07spend by companies in those markets on IT and IT services,
04:11which sort of translated downstream in terms of the number of roles that were
04:16open both within freshers and in sort of, you know, the experience sector,
04:22but primarily within the fresher market.
04:24OK, and what's the impact been on median pay?
04:29Is there any data
04:31that suggests that there's been a little bit of a downward pressure in terms
04:35of the pay packages as well, because that is something we've been
04:39hearing a lot from students we've been interacting with across campuses and
04:43across streams. So is that, you know, sort of validated in any way by any data?
04:49So we don't have very specific data around what those pay could look like,
04:54but you have to understand that pay is a sort of outcome of demand and supply.
05:00And when there is a mismatch between
05:02a demand for jobs and the supply of jobs, there is bound to be some sort of impact
05:08on pay as well.
05:09But broadly, we don't see any sort of specific numbers that
05:14either validate or challenge that claim.
05:17Got it. Also,
05:19how does one read this with the broader job market trends?
05:23Is the market for experienced hires
05:26better at what experience level is the market better?
05:30Could you share any insights on that as well?
05:33So the broader job market seems to be
05:35performing relatively better compared to the fresher market.
05:38But there are challenges and shifts in the job market.
05:41The broader job market,
05:43including all roles, including entry level, etc., broadly seems to be more stable
05:47and doing well as compared to entry level roles.
05:52For specifically for senior roles,
05:54we've actually seen a marginal increase in the number of roles that have been
05:58open and the number of roles that have been hired for.
06:01I think this is primarily due to the economic factors and trends.
06:05Which pertain to certain skill requirements.
06:08Companies may not have hired as many new talent,
06:11but definitely in the mid and senior levels, we've seen
06:15a slight increase in the number of people that people have hired.
06:18OK, and you've touched upon some of the industries which aren't particularly
06:24looking up in terms of hiring IT, for instance, the tech space that you spoke about.
06:28But what about the other industries and which are the industries
06:32that are performing relatively better and hiring?
06:36Yeah, from a fresh graduate perspective,
06:38I think industries like admin, sales and marketing are performing fairly well.
06:42In fact, the report that we put out actually highlights that
06:46for fresher hiring within the admin sector has gone up by 11.5 percent,
06:52specifically for fresher roles.
06:53So also followed by tech and software.
06:56Tech and software has been the backbone and we've seen some dip.
06:59They continue to be hiring in decent numbers considering the situation.
07:04We've also seen marketing and management roles are doing relatively OK.
07:08Whereas sectors like human resources,
07:11education, etc., have seen a bit of a dip as far as fresher hiring is concerned.
07:17And do these trends also have to do with how we've seen some startups perform
07:23the past couple of years or so?
07:25There has been a little bit of
07:28funding winter there, and while that may be changing,
07:31that's happening at a very slow pace, any signs of improvement.
07:35So, I mean, I'm just trying to understand
07:37to what extent are these factors, the decline in fresher hiring,
07:40to what extent is it cyclical and can we expect things to improve going forward?
07:46No, I think we can absolutely expect things to improve.
07:50If you were to look at the India Skills
07:52Report, they indicate there's a positive hiring intent for early career
07:57professionals. Most companies' bases reported that they expect that there'll be
08:03a 16 percent increase in new hires, more freshers in the coming year.
08:08GCCs plan to hire 50 percent more of the global capability centers,
08:13which is essentially the R&D and back offices of large global corporations.
08:18They plan to hire 50 percent more freshers
08:20in the coming year than they did in the previous year.
08:22This came out of
08:24Ernst & Young's report that came out recently.
08:27So this is cyclical.
08:29We will be, and in fact,
08:31I think we are slowly coming to the end of this sort of bottom and we will be seeing
08:36many green shoots and resumption of hiring as far as freshers are concerned
08:40as we head into financial year 2024.
08:43Thank you so much for taking time out for us.
08:46This was indeed a most interesting conversation and it's good to be signing
08:52off on a slightly more positive note, considering how sober the placement
08:57season across some colleges and across streams appears to have been.
09:00Thank you so much, sir, for taking time out.
09:03Thank you so much. Wonderful speaking to you as well.
09:05Same here.
09:09Stay tuned to NDTV Profit for our
09:11continuing coverage on the placement season
09:14and how that's coming up across colleges and streams in India.