Not a temporary advantage

Venkatachari Jagannathan
22 August 2003

Chennai: India is one of the few countries in the world where the job market shows some promise, though it exemplifies a stark contrast. While permanent workforces are sent out by corporates through voluntary, compulsory or early retirement schemes, the temporary or contract employment is increasing at a stunning pace.

Even the central government is in favour of contract employment. Recently the group of ministers (GoM) on contract labour agreed, in principle, to open up 13 areas, including IT services, for contract employment. Capitalising on this job trend are India's domestic placement agencies, which are fast graduating into staffing companies or as workforce suppliers.

Staffing companies are those that carry people on its rolls and forward them as associates or deputees to work in client organisations, of course for a fee. Such workforces are known as bubble resources (temporary jobs come and go like a bubble), secondment, flexi-staff or simply contract staff. There is even one Fortune 500 US company, Man Power, present in this field.

Says Ajit Isaac, the director and CEO of the Bangalore-based Peopleone Consulting: "With organisations outsourcing their operations, India is one of the few countries where employment is showing an upswing. So it is probable that we will find a larger number of international firms setting up operations in India (See: ).

Not a new concept
Contract labour is nothing new for the industries as all the factories have them. The liberalisation of the economy and the entry of multinational companies (MNCs) saw the trend seeping into the white-collar job market.