Our March 2006 cover

With corporate profits growing healthily and competitive pressures also increasing, the job market is on a roll. Young India is both driving and benefiting from the virtuous cycle that consumption, exports and investment deliver. INDIA TODAY partnered with Ma Foi—the largest hr service provider in India with a presence in 12 countries— to survey the job market for the current financial year. The survey, which covered 1,294 companies, reveals that these companies alone will create 8.2 lakh jobs. The survey predicts over 1.9 million jobs will be created. This year while it-enabled services, hospitality and media maintain strong growth, there has been a new surge in textile and garments, real estate and aviation.

Unlike in the past few years, when the service sector produced more jobs, this year manufacturing and industry are growing at a fast pace and are competing for scarce talent. It is an indication of the maturing of the Indian economy as the bias towards services sector jobs is being corrected. It gets even better when you look at the compensation. Indian companies, faced with a talent scarcity, are paying the highest salary hikes for the fourth year in running, the highest in the Asia Pacific region. Students at the IIM Ahmedabad were offered salaries ranging from Rs 60 lakh to Rs 1 crore per annum. Indian management professionals are expected to dominate energy, trading and shipping in the Middle East.

India though lives in a paradox of both shortage in jobs and talent because our education and vocational guidance systems are not geared for the 21st century. As the definition and the image of the Indian job-seeker alters across the world, India Inc will have to find its own solution to what the vexing question reservation is trying to do—or rather, undo. All sections of society require access to the labour market and the fruits of economic growth.

Our cover story is the third in an annual series that we have run on the Indian job market. This year, for the first time, we have our exclusive survey in the cover package put together by Associate Editor Malini Bhupta and anchored by Managing Editor Shankkar Aiyar. These numbers are the kind the young—feeling trapped by the machinations of the politicians over quotas—need to hear about. This is the best time to be young, ambitious, Indian and looking for your first job.

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