Reliance group and its support firms layoff 5,000 employees

The global financial crisis has hit India’s largest private sector conglomerate. Sources claim that the Reliance group and its associate companies have asked about 5,000 employees to resign. A significant portion of the staff reduction has come from their retail operations. Some of the companies involved in the exercise are Reliance Retail, Reliance Logistics, Reliance Info Systems and Reliance Corporate Park. The resignations, as against a straight lay-off, leave employees in a better position to find new jobs. While the associate companies have been supporting Reliance Industries’ core operations for several years they will be shut down affecting permanent employees who are largely middle-level managers.

Some employees stated that as many as 3,000 people in the retail business were in the process of being sent home as the proposed expansion had been scaled back after an abrupt change in economic prospects in the last six months.

India's state airlines mulls temporary layoff 15,000 staff

Barely one days have gone when India's biggest private sector Airlines Jet Airways annouced large scale sacking of its employees due to continuing lossess, now India's government run airlines Air India is mulling to lay off 15,000 employees for 5 years. In the meantime sacked employees of Jet air lines have been protesting at the Jet Airways office in India. They have got some political support as well but Jet management has refused to budge from its position and have clearly said they can't take the employees back.

Facing the heat of the financial crisis that has hit the aviation sector, state-owned Air India on Thursday said it is considering a plan to give 3-5 years leave without pay to about 15,000 of its staff.
"We are planning to offer leave without pay for three to five years. We can consider it for about 15,000 employees," Air India CMD Raghu Menon said.

He, however, said those who take up the offer to go on leave would be taken back if they desire so at the same seniority and last drawn pay.

Menon's statement comes at a time when the country's leading private carrier Jet Airways has laid off 1,900 jobs as the financial crunch in the aviation sector worsens.

An official of Air India, who did not want to be named, said that a proposal for leave without pay could be brought before the company's board soon.

The government yesterday had, however, ruled out any job cuts in Air India with the civil aviation minister Praful Patel assuring employees that there were no plans to prune staff strength immediately.

"No...Air India is not going to have any job cuts. Certainly it (the aviation crisis) will affect the growth plans, it will affect the future employment opportunities which would have come the way of Air India in case the aviation industry was in a much better financial health," Patel said.

"But as of now I do not have the luxury to say beyond the fact that those who are working for the Air India shall continue to do so and we shall not have any issue of people being laid off," he said.

The 77-year-old state carrier, which initiated a fleet renewal programme three years ago and merged with its sister airline Indian last year, has proposed infusion of Rs 1,000-1,500 crore of equity capital.

It is also looking at soft loans of Rs 1,000 crore from government that can be repaid over a period of time.

According to industry experts the coming together of Jet and Kingfisher could further mount the problems for Air India.

Menon, however, disagreed with the views and said it would only lead to a reduction in competition. "There are a number of routes and there are a number of airlines. All the airlines will be evenly poised in the market," he said.

Reliance Retail layoff 2500 employees15 Oct

After the layoff of 1000 employees by Jet Airways, the breaking news is that Reliance Retail , Mukesh Ambani has announced the layoff of 2500 employees. The retail industry is also not doing well.

The employees who are sent off are from the places where they are not performing well. These layoffs will really going to effect the youngsters in India. 15 Reliance stores in Noida and Ghaziabad have also been asked to shut down last week, on orders from the police, though staff there have not yet been given the pink slip last month.

Kingfisher Lay off Job Cut: Kingfisher Fires 300 employees

he most glamourous and the most news making Airline company of India, Kingfisher Airlines, has decided to go for a job cut or employee layoff or firing.
Along with the IT & Financial companies across the globe going for a massive lay off, Kingfisher Airlines is the latest on to join the bandwagon. It was Wipro Layoffs followed by Satyam Layoff, then Hewlett packard HP, and now the most talked about Indian Airline Company has decided to give Pink Slips or decided to fire Employees.

The most happening airline company of India, Kingfisher Airlines, has decided to go for a massive layoff. Due to volatile fuel prices burining a hole in the pocket of Airline companies, they are forced to go for cost cutting measures. In the aviation industry, Vijay Mallya-promoted Kingfisher Airlines is cutting 300 jobs, besides returning surplus aircrafts.
As per the news, the developments are a part of a concerted company-wide effort aimed at minimising the impact of the ongoing turbulence faced by the aviation industry, Kingfisher Airlines has, over the last six months, embarked on a series of restructuring measures designed to achieve cost savings and rationalisation and operational efficiencies - a company spokesperson said.

These Kingfisher Layoffs Job Cuts are a step in implementing of these guidelines. These 300 employees have chosen to move on and have parted ways with the company and/or put in their resignations," he added.

The carrier is also returning surplus aircrafts to lessors, which are now redundant consequent upon route rationalisation.

"We have already returned two aircraft and are closely monitoring aircraft utilisation," the spokesperson said.

This move was expected from the in the aviation inductry by the Kingfisher Airline Company. Recent takeover of Deccan Airways which is now known as Simplifly Deccan, and the volatile ATF prices were bound to have its effect on the aviation companies. Elaborating the reasons behind downsizing of staff, he said as the process of integration of the two entities (Kingfisher and Simplifly Deccan) nears completion, the carrier examined the complete organisation structure of the airline and mapped the skill sets of the existing talent pool with the projected talent requirements of the company.

"Many employees were counselled on their career path progression and best utilisation of their individual skill sets," he said.

As a token of goodwill, the carrier is offering all these employees a severance package equal to two months gross salary for every completed year of service (subject to a minimum of 3 months pay-out), the spokesperson said.

Kingfisher Airlines currently operates 424 domestic flights and two international flights with a total of 86 aircrafts.

Motorola to revamp R&D unit, layoff 150 jobs

Motorola as part of restructuring its research and development operations has decided to layoff 150 jobs in Motorola labs with effective from July 1.



The reorganization will include transfer of 180 employees to some specific divisions in other business groups including mobile devices, home and network equipment and government public safety systems, while the remaining 300 employees will remain in a central applied research and technology department.

Layoffs loom in IT majors, techies panic

Bangalore: The IT industry has some job worries. More than 500 IBM and TCS employees across the country have been retrenched. This has techies in the IT industry uncertain about their future.

Worried IT guys writing, speaking their mind on blogs. This is what dominates the cyberspace these days. Well, at least in the techies' domain.

The worry stems from the recent retrenchment of many like them from the TCS and IBM.

Though many like Akhil (name changed) who works in IT firm, don't feel alarmed yet, the truth is – the younger crop IS apprehensive.

And with the gossip mills running riot, many in the industry feel their future may not be as secure as they once thought it to be.

Akhil says, "The panic hasn't as such set in. Among the fresher there might be a certain amount of wariness."

However, industry leaders dismiss the retrenchment of more than 500 IBM and TCS employees across the country as routine - a part of quality control.

You underperform and you get sacked. They say it has little to do with the rising rupee or the slowdown in the US economy.

Customer XPs CEO, Rivi Varghese says, “As an industry grows higher up the chain, it is but natural that a small percentage of the people will not be able to keep pace with that. So it is a question of expectations not being met."

Let's not panic yet - that seems to be the message being sent out by young techies to their friends and colleagues in the industry but having said that the IBM, TCS exodus has made the situation deeply disturbing.

IndyMac layoffs in India 400-450

Independent mortgage lender in the US, IndyMac Bancorp, has decided to cut down staff with its temporary and outsourcing vendors by 27%, mainly in India.

Currently, three service providers in India, Cognizant Technology Solutions, ExlService Holdings and WNS, cater to the ninth-largest American mortgage lender. IndyMac’s move could impact about 400-450 people at the three service providers.

Stronger rupee makes employment hunters labour harder

NEW DELHI: The rising rupee has only added fuel to the fire. While employment in the exports-led sectors has taken a beating this year as the rupee appreciated sharply against the US dollar, the strain on the labour market became visible last year.

According to the latest official statistics, the number of registered job seekers in the country shot up by more than 20 lakh to 4.14 crore during 2006. Significantly, the increase comes after two straight years of decline in registered work applicants during 2004 and 2005, a period when the corporate sector started pouring in new investments and expansion capital into the country.

Interestingly, the number of job seekers in India increased at a time when the number of unemployed in more developed but slow-growing economies, such as the US and Japan, came down. The number of registered job seekers in India had shrunk from 4.13 crore in 2003 to 3.93 crore during 2005, the first time in eight years that the absolute number had dropped below the 4-crore mark.

“Job seekers are growing at a rate faster than available opportunities,” International Labour Organisation (ILO) India’s Employment & Labour Market Policy specialist Sukti Dasgupta said.

To put the numbers into perspective, the 5.4% increase in the number of work applicants last year, the highest growth in a decade, was more than thrice the annual growth rate of the country’s population and came about even as the country’s GDP expanded 9.4% during 2006-07.

Also, the absolute number of job seekers was the highest in the last five years, a period when the economy started revving up after a slowdown and corporate restructuring in the late ’90s, when jobs were cut.

There are four possible sources of this addition to the number of job seekers: those entering the work force for the first time, those under-employed in traditional agriculture migrating to towns to seek new jobs, those who lose their jobs and seek fresh ones, and those already employed seeking better alternatives.

“Last year, there was huge urban migration. People are moving out of the farm sector, where there isn’t much money left to be made, looking for jobs in the urban centres. However, most of them are unskilled workers and are not readily employable. This urban migration is going to continue for a long time,” according to TeamLease chairman Manish Sabharwal. TeamLease is the largest temporary staffing firm in the country.

Additional signs of job losses are already visible this year as certain sectors, such as textiles and leather, have started cutting jobs. This is due to the adverse impact of the rupee’s appreciation, which has made Indian exports less competitive.

Interestingly, the increase in the number of registered job seekers in India came about even as most large economies reported a decline in the number of unemployed last year. A sample of 25 large and prominent emerging economies picked by ET for whom unemployment data is available for 2006, shows that more than 80% have reported a decline in the number of unemployed.

This includes even mature markets that have been facing job losses as global corporations move operations to low-cost emerging markets. Countries such as the US, Japan, Germany, Italy, South Korea and Australia reported a decline in unemployment during 2006. Among the emerging economies, Argentina, Mexico, Pakistan, Poland, South Africa and Thailand reported a decrease in the number of jobless.

India was among the few exceptions, including countries such as Russia and Indonesia, which reported an increase in the number of unemployed. While the data may not be comparable on a one-on-one basis given the differences in methodology for collating information, this is in line with global trends.

According to ILO’s Global Employment Trends released early this year, based on preliminary estimates, the number of people unemployed worldwide remained at a historic high in 2006 despite strong global economic growth. The number was pegged at 195.2 million in 2006. In percentage terms, the number of registered job seekers in India would account for about 20% of the world’s job seekers given this ILO estimate that included data from China as well.




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