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More hiring, better hikes: Job market eyes e-push in 2016 

By PTI | 13 Dec, 2015, 03.53PM IST 

NEW DELHI: The job market promises pay hikes in the range of 10-30% and aggressive hiring by the private sector in 2016, but a push will need to come from e-commerce and 'Make in India'. Another boost can come from the 7th Pay Commission, which will trigger a big hike in salaries of government employees, and a domino's effect can be seen on pay packets of many in the private sector as well.

Experts said the job market remained a mixed bag in 2015 but it was definitely better than the previous year and the promises of a better investment climate and the government push to manufacturing industry will soon start bearing fruit.

Executive search firm GlobalHunt MD Sunil Goel said, "Though there is lot of back-end work happening to bring the 'good days', it is still reflected at sentiment level only. It may start reflecting on ground level in year 2016."

 Leading quarterly hiring surveys predict a bullish start for the year 2016.

Staffing firm TeamLease Services' senior VP Kunal Sen said, "E-commerce and IT sectors continue to look bullish next year. Moreover, the push on 'Make in India' is expected to see an uptick in hiring in infrastructure and manufacturing next year."

 The plan to create 100 smart cities is expected to fuel the job growth further. "Year 2016 will bring large number of jobs in tier II cities with Digital India and Smart city initiatives," Goel said.

 In order to attract and retain key talent, the companies will need to go for higher pay. According to a TimesJobs. com survey, over 70% employees regret working in the private sector following the proposed 23.6% salary hike for the government staff. "In 2016, average raise of the salary will go around 12-14% wherein the key performers' hike can hit as good as 25-30%," Goel said.

 He added that along with significant rise in salaries companies would keep designing innovative benefit options to attract and retain talent like stock options, flexibility, including more diversity and creating a conducive organization culture.

The key hiring trends of 2015 were higher use of social media and technology especially among start-ups and e-commerce firms and increased focus of companies on employee retention and this trend will continue next year as well.
"Start-ups and e-commerce firms made increasing amount of use of technology such as video interviews, online assessments tools etc resulting in speeding up the interview process and improving the quality of hire," executive recruitment firm Antal international India Managing Director Joseph Devasia said.

Meanwhile, quality of talent in India remains a serious concern and there is immediate need for preparing and training resources as per industry demands.

Reportedly, India is among the top-five countries in terms of talent shortage with around 61 per cent employers facing difficulties in finding candidates with right skills.

"We have an unusual talent mismatch -- inadequate skill sets of workforce in regions where industry is concentrated like South and West India, and not enough employment opportunities in their home regions for large working population in North and East India," TeamLease's Sen said.