Job seekers are in for a stroke of midnight hour luck. Their NEW YEAR celebration this time will not be a case of willing suspension of disbelief lots of jobs are headed India's way in 2011 - a key year For globalisation.
The big 'O' in the story here is 'outsourcing', which is projected to gain momentum as it envelops the entire world of business (instead of just leading -edge globalises). But even domestic jobs could grow rapidly if India's economic growth spreads more evenly across sectors, and business shifts gears from cost-efficiency to true market expansion.

PALPABLE OPTIMISM:
Listen to professionals in touch with recruitment trends. Says
Mr. Suvendu Das, Founder and CEO, www.jobsindya.com , India :
'The job market in the private sector in 2011 will be the strongest in the last 10 years.' He even calls it a "hotter job market than in the tech boom in 1999-2008".

TREND ACCLERATION:
The youth-hog Of the country will continue to be the business process outsourcing (BPO) Sector, which is expected to take in 1,60,000 fresh people next year. Also, as BPO units scale their way up the value chain, they want people for more and more sophisticated jobs. Basic entry level process recruiting will continue, but at least a tenth of the new jobs would demand analytical skills.
Software exports are also part of the larger outsourcing phenomenon, and this sector is experiencing a boom. According to

Mr. Parangam Das, Relations Manager, Iksen India Pvt.Ltd., a software development farm, boom will extend nicely into 2011, unless there is a government policy goof-up or some international shock.
According to recent top-notch consultancy survey points towards Information Technology and IT enabled services as the hottest recruiter in the immediate future, so by 2011 at least 1,30,000 software jobs job aspirants can expect in INDIA.
The resurgent manufacturing sector too premises thousands of new jobs, especially in the auto ancillary sector thrives. Oil and gas and power are also expected to recruit many more people. Then
in organised retail, an estimated 30,000 direct recruits would be needed, in addition to many more indirect .The hot specialisations: merchandising, buying ,sourcing and supply chain management.
Of course, the letting in of foreign retail chains could give the entire sector a huge fillip, thanks to the stimulus of fresh competition.
Don't forget the insurance and private banking sector; both have big expansion plan. Private bank vying for large asset bases of retail loans, for example, would need additional manpower to cover new territory.

NEW OPPORTUNITIES:

Many of the new jobs will be on account of the scheduled changes in the pace of globalisation. World trade in textile and clothes, for example, will follow regular rules of competitiveness once the big markets of the rich world phase out their import quotas. In anticipation of a larger global market share, India's big textile and apparel companies have already started ramping up operations and taking in people.
The other big 2011 event is the shift to a product patent regime for pharmaceuticals, which is expected to reload the sector's recruitment dice in favour of research. Biotech, another hot emerging sector, will also be busy recruiting researchers and scientists though not in vast numbers. A related opportunity lies in turning India into a global medical care hub, which could spell large recruitments made by healthcare chains as they prepare to treat the rich world's patients at a fraction of the cost in their home countries.
So, what else to expect this year? "The attrition rates in sectors like software will rise to 15 percent, affecting productivity and profit margins for the industry. The wage inflation will be close to 20 percent, and the job seeker will be the new king," concludes Parangam. Sound the bugles, unfurl the steamers. There's quite a year ahead.

Many of the new jobs in 2011 will be on account of scheduled changes in the pace of globalisation.

BRISK HIRING ALL AROUND AS COS EXPAND
The Hindu Business Line

If it was retrenchment and pink slips a few summers ago after the tech bubble burst and 9/11 attacks impacting investments and recruitment in the technology sector, it is a different story now.

Companies are hiring rapidly to induct more techies and fight higher levels of attrition. Trends indicate that IT is back as a career destination with a bang.

According to National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom),"The Indian ICT industry, after a three-year lull is back on track, and hiring rapidly. The global economic downturn, which lasted over three years and brought in its wake pink slips, benching and retrenchment, appears like a thing of the past. Indian IT services companies, which were impacted by this slowdown and put a cap on their hiring to cut costs and maintain momentum, are getting back into the swing of things and its beginning to look like business as usual."
INDIA DOES NOT HAVE ENOUGH PEOPLE IN R&D’
Deccan Chronicle

India faces a shortage of people for high-end industrial work that is based on research and development, Nasscom president Kiran Karnik said. “We have around 5,000 PhDs in the country (who pass out annually). We all know that India has a competitive edge and companies cannot find the numbers we have in other places, but that has dwindled in high-end areas,” Karnik told reporters on the sidelines of the Nasscom Quality summit.

He said about 3.5 lakh engineering students graduate annually, “but a fewer number of people pursue masters or doctorates, and only about 5,000 students are in PhD”. Only about seven to eight people of every 100 were employable in the BPO industry and “the industry can hire the best seven or eight, but when the industry needs to expand in the long run, they would find it difficult,” he said.

In an effort to address these concerns, he said, Nasscom had begun talks at the University level to improve the syllabus and quality of faculty, by adopting the models of Indian Institute of Information Technology at Hyderabad and Bangalore. Karnik also said that Nasscom plans to introduce by this year-end a common certification in terms of skills and knowledge, that matches industry requirement, for youngsters aspiring to enter the booming business process outsourcing industry. Karnik said the certification would be planned in consultation with the industry. “We are working with the industry. The first part would be ready in the next few months, by the end of this year,” he said.

'IT, SCIENTIFIC MANPOWER ARE INDIA'S STRENGTHS'

The Times of India

India's IT prowess and its burgeoning pool of scientific talent are two of most effective tools for development, says one of the country's top science officials.

"There is a big pull on science and technology manpower in our country with our industry becoming more innovative - whether in automobiles, pharmaceuticals or other sectors," said R.A. Mashelkar, director general of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).

"With around 100 companies like GE, IBM and Microsoft having set up research and development operations in India, there is a major change in science and technology manpower approach," Mashelkar told reporters.

"For the first time we are seeing a huge demand for science and technology manpower.

While India is eyeing IT as the biggest engine of growth, Mashelkar said: "IT not as in information technology alone but Indian Talent will in the future help the country win the position of prestige.

INDIA'S SOFTWARE BOOM ON TRACK: NASSCOM
The Indian Express

India's software exports are on track to grow by 30 per cent in the year to March 2008, despite attempts in the key US Market to discourage outsourcing and protect jobs, the industry's head said.

India's information technology (IT) sector and business process outsourcing (BPO) industries, which offer back office and call centre services, logged exports worth $12.5 billion in the 2003-2004 fiscal year.

Nearly 25 per cent of the exports that involved 800,000 workers come from the top three companies in the sector -- Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, Infosys Technologies Ltd and Wipro Ltd.

"We made a projection of 30 to 32 per cent (growth) for the fiscal year combining IT and BPO. We are comfortable with that," Kiran Karnik, President of the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM), told reporters.

US SEND HIGH-END TECH JOBS TO INDIA
The Economic Times

If you thought outsourcing was all about data entry and back office work then you are sure to have a shock to see Iayaraja Marimuthu designing a program for the wedding, scheduled for October, of Ann and John, a Texas couple proclaiming their joy in being "together for life." It will take Marimuthu less than an hour to give an artistic touch to the wedding invitation.

Outsourcing is fast moving from just software codes and call centres to a vast category stretching from copy editing to financial analysis to tax preparation. Outsourcing is fast changing the office atmosphere and staff chemistry in the US. Jobs such as personal assistants, secretaries, typists may soon fade into history and people will be able to move up the value chain to take up more creative and specialised works.

As low-end jobs flee the US, the job data is painting a very dull picture affecting other economic indicators as well. OfficeTiger is one of the pioneer firms to lead the flow of white-collar jobs out of the US. It has hired 2,000 Indians and is not limiting them to just BPO contract workers. "We're allowing employees to delve deeper, to learn more, to push the boundaries of what had been standard work," says OfficeTiger's American co-founder, Joe Sigelman.

NASSCOM KICKS OFF IT WORKFORCE PROGRAMME
The Financial Express The Hindu The Hindu Business Line The Asian Age
In a bid to meet the projected demand of 2.1 million information technology (IT) professionals by 2010, Nasscom (National Association of Software and Services Companies) has launched an IT workforce initiative, which would focus on the creation of human resources.

President, Nasscom, Kiran Karnik, said: “The IT software and services industry has grown rapidly over the last decade. The revenue from this industry, which was $30 billion during 2003-04, is expected to increase to $50 billion in 2009.

However, to meet this target the software and services industry will have to grow to 2.1 million persons by 2009 from the 8,00,000 persons at present. “Estimates however, suggest that we will have only 1.5 million skilled IT manpower by 2011, leaving a gap of almost 22 per cent.

Availability of human resources will, therefore, decide the growth trajectory of the IT industry,” he said.