PICTURE SPEAK

Our previous covers on the job market

As a newsmagazine we have always taken great pride in our exhaustive coverage of the economy-from the days of the licence raj to today's post-liberalisation boom. To the average man on the street the economy begins and ends with issues of employment and income. One of the lingering worries for the Indian economy in the 21st century was whether it was heading for an era of jobless growth. To put this apprehension to test, we decided to turn our attention to the job market.

We found that employment, specially in the private sector, is the least tracked sector of the economy. In the absence of organised data, we reached out to headhunters, recruiters and leading industrial houses to cull information on India's job market. It required three months of work but at the end of it all, the news is good: 2005 is a year when the Indian economy is likely to witness an unprecedented job boom and salary increases will be at their highest.

Our cover story is an in-depth look at the job market across sectors. The story profiles the top five sectors and the data we have collected will surprise you. Sectors like it, telecom and finance are very strong but what is encouraging is that sectors that have been written off-like textiles and retail-are also showing significant job growth. "For urban middle-class job seekers, it is an employee's-not employer's-market," says Assistant Editor Malini Goyal who put together the cover package. What has also emerged as a trend is the fact that the very nature of the Indian workplace is changing. The boundaries between life at work and life at home are blurring. This may mean higher salaries and productivity, but will require that we find newer strategies to cope with and adjust to the new Indian workplace.

It is imperative to remember that jobs cannot boom in isolation; rather they are the outcome of an economy on a consistent high growth path in which companies are aggressively investing to create a virtuous cycle of employment, income, consumption and production. Our accompanying story found the Indian economy to be in one such cycle. On the economy, no news is bad news. The stock markets have climbed, with the BSE Sensex topping 6700. Foreign investment in 2004 has spiralled upwards. After the economy clocked a 15-year high growth of 8.5 per cent last year, it is expected to follow it up with a 6.9 per cent growth this year. Finance Minister P. Chidambaram could well repeat the memorable phrase of prime minister Harold Macmillan, who told the British public in 1959: "You've never had it so good." Hopefully Budget 2005 will only reinforce this sentiment.

(Aroon Purie)

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