The official figure of job loss for Indian workers in United Arab Emirates (UAE) is 150000 due to economic crisis and recession. This is reveled by Overseas Indian affairs minister Vayalar Ravi in Loksabha. Most of the workers have returned to India on leave without pay with the expectation that they would be able to go back to the Gulf country once the situation improves. (more…)
Fighting recession
Don’t Cry Recession – Do not make recession an excuse for your inaction
“Recession” is the reason for everything that is happening to me!
Are you among those who think like this? If you think like this then you need to rethink about your thinking.
It has become fashionable to blame recession for everything that is going wrong. I lost my job because of recession. I have to work extra because of recession. My sales is down because of recession. Blaming everything on recession is an easy excuse.
But is that truth? Yes we accept that there are some who are genuinely affected by recession – but there are more than that who just got the “recession bug” and complain about recession in everything they do and assign the reason of their failure on recession.
Remember – it is easy for anyone to do good in the good times – those who have got stuff – do good even in bad times. The real test of how good you are is not in the times of extreme growth but it is in the times when the going is tough.
So if you are a good salesman – do not blame recession for drop in your sales revenue. Go out and sell! Do not sit assuming that due to recession there are no buyers.
If you are a good production manager – do not stop producing as nobody is buying. May be look for the ways to reduce the product’s production cost and pass on the benefit to buyers – al lower price they may buy!
If you are a good IT manager – look for ways to improve information efficiency and make your organization competitive in the changed scenario.
What else is mark of a real professional. If you keep sitting, doing nothing you will keep getting the same results – no action – no results.
As a job seeker even if you lost your job – do not get overwhelmed by the figures of unemployment – they are just statistics and they are there because we are making them. Keep trying to find the opportunity – never stopping your effort – and you will get the results. Meanwhile try for alternative occupations in the time you have and make the most of it.
Key is to ACT and do not make recession as an excuse for inaction!
Where is recession? – Indian companies increasing salaries at highest rate in Asia – Hewitt survey
As per a survey of 480 Indian companies over December 2008 and January 2009 conducted by HR consultancy firm Hewitt – despite the economic slowdown, a majority of Indian companies are still hiring employees. Here are some interesting revelations of this survey
- Average salary hike in India in 2009 will be 8.2% (the highest in the Asia Pacific region hoever first time in six years that India is likely to see single-digit salary increases)
- Projected salary hike is lower than the increase of 13.3% seen in 2008
- The hike higher than China (8%) USA (3.2%) and Japan (2.3%)
- Sectors expected to see the highest raises are FMCG, durables and telecom.
- Healthcare is sector that is doing well globally and in India. In 2008, hospitals had awarded the lowest salary increases but have been placed among the top five sectors for 2009.
With inflation well below 5.5%, an average increase of 8.2% can be considered as a good raise.
To read more about this on Hewitt website – click here
- Employees at the junior manager, professional and supervisor levels are expected to receive the highest increases.
- About 16% of companies in India are considering retrenchments
- More than 60% are still hiring
- Nine out of every 10 companies still giving promotions
- Only 0.83% of companies are resorting to salary cuts
Now compare this to USA – 55% of companies in the US, 30.6% in China, 32% in Australia, 20% in Thailand and 17% in Japan are considering laying off their employees to cut costs in the face of economic recession
How Indian companies are facing recession
- In India, most companies face the downturn by drastically cutting down on luxuries and discretionary expenses such as non-billable travel and entertainment, with greater focus on prudence and productivity with the intent is to avoid layoffs.
- They are redeploying human resources and making largescale realignments to the organization
Early warning indicators for approaching layoffs
Indian workers has got the taste of globalization yesterday from none other than its home grown leading private airline Jet airways. Jet Airways have laid off more than 900 of its employees in one single day and have plans to make this figure above 1800 within next two days.
Till now in India the layoff by an Indian company were an hush hush affair. The layoff or pink slips (as they are called in western world) were thought to be a way of only companies from rest of world. This event was unlike the earlier layoffs which has been splashed in media like anything.
On the other side of world amidst the economic recession more than 750,000 jobs have disappeared from the U.S. economy this year. The workers face the prospect of plenty more layoffs to come as a continuing credit crunch and weak consumer demand hamper firms trying to maintain payrolls.
Now the big question before all of us workers is – “How safe is my job”? The answer is tricky but not difficult. You can now look for early warnings indicators for approaching layoffs. Here are seven signs (EWAs) that may signal your position is on the line.
(1) Other got fired in your company: If others are losing their jobs you may too, even if your boss says otherwise. Prepare yourself for that call to corner office and being handed over the pink slip. Note that in bad times even management may not have sense of things which may be affecting the business real time. In a globalized economy situations change rapidly. This does not mean that people are telling lies but them may not be aware genuinely. It may be the case of missing information, or circumstances change.
The basic pint is that you need to be aware of the possibility of a layoff. Workers at greatest risk of layoffs may be those who were most recently hired (although a lot depends on company policy). This was the case with Jet Airways layoff above. Other targets are workers who aren’t getting the job done. Middle management and highly paid top managers are also targets. The workers who are contract are also among the first to go.
(2) Freeze on New Hiring: Vanishing job postings (internal or external) and vanishing referral schemes are also send a layoff signal. You should look at whether colleagues are taking on more or less work, and whether some are being asked or told to leave.
The sequence of disappearance is typically started with the newly created or budgeted positions that have not been filled which are the first to go, then replacement positions that used to be posted and have disappeared, and then come the retirements that seem to be welcomed by management and are not filled.
(3) Training budgets cut: Even large companies may cut training budgets, a red flag that financial concerns could lead to layoffs. While there are certain critical initiatives or projects that need to go forward if a company wants to keep up production, workers should watch out when project spending slows.
From an employee’s standpoint, anytime they see an organization cutting back on its spending and cutting back on activities, as well as staff or initiatives around them, they need to think through the details and figure out at what point does it reach my position.
(4) New projects and events vanishing from scene: The new IT project or budgeted initiative has just vanished and no one talks about it now. Well, that is an indication of slowdown and probable cut in employees who are normally required for new projects.
(5) Office Grapevine: Conventional wisdom calls for taking office gossip with a pinch of salt. But sometimes it makes sense to listen to what your co-workers are saying and doing. It makes sense to notice what the talk is and to notice how people’s responsibilities or jobs are being redefined.
(6) Company is missing targets quarter after quarter: While some management may be less than forthcoming about missed targets for financial performance, workers can investigate a company’s health by checking out the budget. A major sign of approaching layoffs is a business that isn’t performing well. Especially at publicly traded companies, performance is critical, because firms that don’t perform to an expected level, even during recessionary times, will be forced to cut back.
(7) What your top management is saying in public: The top management speeches and statements in public are sometimes indicators of coming dangers. Like in case of Jet airways – a stress deal with Kingfisher airlines is announced a couple of days earlier and this followed by retrenchments.
Whatever may be the reason workers all over the world need to face recession and have to secure their jobs. Making note of early warning indicators may help in some cases.
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