Salary gap between temporary and permanent salaries narrowing: Survey

29 March 2007

Bangalore: India ''s largest staffing company and the biggest player in the ''temping'' industry, TeamLease Services Pvt. Ltd, has released its annual Temp Salary Primer 2007. With 67,000 employees on its rolls at 464 locations, TeamLease is a pioneer in providing temporary staff to companies.

This salary survey for temporary hiring covers 34 profiles in six industry domains across 13 major locations.

The report, TeamLease trend watch for each location captures trends in the salary distribution across verticals, domains and functions. The national index page also contains a comparison between temp and permanent salaries across profiles, experience and domain.

According to Rajesh A R vice president, temporary staffing, "Two important trends emerging from the primer are the increasing returns to skill and the accelerated narrowing of the temp and perm salary gap. The increasing returns to skill (23 per cent for every education increment) partly reflect the skill shortage but also reflect productivity gains.

The narrowing salary gap reflects more efficient labour market intermediation. As organised temporary staffing firms complement (or substitute) poorly performing employment exchanges and apprenticeship programs, labour market liquidity improves and transaction costs in matching labour demand and supply reduce. These reduced transaction costs are being passed onto employees.

This primer reflects the accelerating vibrancy of India and its companies. The number of industries and geographies using organised temporary staffing is rapidly increasing as acceptance increases among employers and employees. Temporary jobs are an important part of the solution to the public policy issues of jobs and skills but unfortunately 99 per cent of the industry is still in the unorganised sector because of labour legislation.