Chennai witnesses 21pc dip in job creation: Assocham

Chennai:

The city of Chennai has witnessed significant dip of over 21 per cent in new job generation during the first quarter of the ongoing financial year  primarily due to closure of small scale industries (SSIs) owing to unprecedented power crisis, according to a recent analysis of job scenario across India carried out by apex industry body The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM).

“A total of over 8,000 new jobs were generated in Chennai during the Q1 as against over 10,200 new jobs created across the city during the corresponding period last year,” according to a sector-specific analysis titled ‘Job Trends Across Cities & Sectors,’ conducted by ASSOCHAM.

The ASSOCHAM team had tracked the data on a daily basis for vacancies posted by over 3,000 companies on various job portals, advertisements in job supplements of national and regional dailies and news journals across 32 sectors offering employment opportunities.

“The main reason behind the dismal job scenario is closure of about 25 per cent of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) mainly due to severe power shortage, apart from this there are number of other factors like global economic slowdown, decline in industrial production, high inflation, overall difficult and unfavourable market conditions which have severely impacted India thereby making them extremely cautious on the hiring front,” said D S Rawat, national secretary general of ASSOCHAM while releasing the chamber’s analysis.

“The hiring activity across sectors is likely to remain subdued even during the second quarter of the current financial year as uncertain economic conditions are likely to persist but the industry is hopeful that job market will pick up by the end of Q2.”

“The information technology (IT), information technology enabled services (ITeS) and IT hardware have jointly acquired the highest share of over 41 per cent thereby creating about 3,700 new jobs as against 5,300 new jobs were created in this sector during Q1 of the previous financial year i.e. FY 2012-13,” said Rawat.

“Even though, Chennai has emerged as India’s world-class tech destination, but the IT/ITeS and IT hardware sectors have jointly seen a massive decline of over 43 per cent, of this the new job generation in IT hardware and ITeS sector declined by about 57 per cent and by about 29 per cent respectively.”

The banking and financial services sector together has created about 670 jobs in Chennai but the job creation in the sector has declined at an average of about 15 per cent. Automobile sector has also seen a decline of over 37 per cent in new job creation as the number of jobs generated in the sector declined from over 560 to just about 350. Besides, manufacturing sector has also seen a decline of over 41 per cent has dipped from over 460 to about 270.

Telecom sector has seen massive surge of over 149 per cent in new job creation in Chennai thereby creating 400 new jobs in the current FY as against over 160 jobs in the previous financial year, highlighted the ASSOCHAM analysis.

While, the insurance sector registered about 75 per cent increase from over 240 jobs to over 430 new jobs, the academics sector has also seen a surge of over 17 per cent in new jobs thereby creating over 340 jobs across the city.

The human resources (HR) sector has registered over 10 per cent surge in job creation with over 170 new jobs, while advertising sector has created over 100 new jobs thereby registering over 63 per cent increase.