A'bad outpaces Mumbai, Delhi in recruitment

AHMEDABAD: Ahmedabad may have long suffered from the image of being a laggard in the recruitment sweepstakes, particularly after the damaging effects of the 2001 earthquake and 2002 riots in rapid succession. But not any more. At least if management consultant MaFoi''s Employment Survey (MEtS) for quarter April-June 2005 of 2047 companies across 17 sectors of products and services, is anything to go by.
The MEtS survey ranks Ahmedabad at third slot right behind Chennai and Hyderabad on the MaFoi Employment Index (MEI) with a rating of 2.71 per cent, and ahead of some of the better known and popular employment generating cities like Pune (2.44 per cent), Mumbai (1.93 per cent), Delhi (1.73 per cent) and Bangalore (1.28 per cent) in terms of recruitment growth.
Of course, its Ahmedabad''s fast-clipped recruitment on a smaller employee and employer base as compared to the traditionally top hiring destinations, that has catapulted it to the third slot. In terms of sheer absolute numbers, however, Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore would obviously be ahead.
The MEI, which measures the pace of recruitment activity/hiring needs of employers and employment opportunities being created across 17 sectors in the country, has been pegged at 1.28 per cent for the quarter.
The MEI indicates the prospective net percentage growth in employment over the present levels and is based on the absolute number of jobs being created in the quarter across the respondent companies over their current employee base. Similarly, the MEtS has rated Gujarat (1.54 per cent) at third slot after Tamil Nadu (3.16 per cent) and Andhra Pradesh (2.67 per cent) but slightly ahead of Maharashtra (1.41 per cent), Haryana (1.26 per cent), Delhi (1.18 per cent) and Karnataka (1.17 per cent).
Interestingly, the survey has rated services with an MEI of 1.65 per cent higher than products at 1.05 per cent with sectors like telecom leading the top hirers race with an MEI of 3.68 per cent, followed by IT at 3.46 per cent, ITES at 2.94 per cent, retail at 2.39 per cent, pharmaceuticals at 2.13 per cent, hospitality at 1.92 per cent, transport and logistics at 1.83 per cent, print media and entertainment at 1.65 per cent, infrastructure at 1.56 per cent and textiles at 1.24 per cent.
But what has been the primary reason for the Gujarat and Ahmedabad racing ahead of some preferred destinations? "Not only does Gujarat have a strong manufacturing base in pharmaceuticals and chemicals, a lot of investment is pouring into services sectors like telecom, retail, healthcare, banking and insurance. The state is also on the radar screen of ITES majors thanks to an improvement in perception over the past one and a half years," explained E Balaji, executive director (staffing solutions), Ma Foi Management Consultants Ltd.
In addition to this, Gujarat cities like Ahmedabad and Vadodara have shown good conversion rates of around 45 per cent when companies come hiring particularly in the BPO sector, he added.
"Today Gujarat and Ahmedabad in particular has a good, cost-effective talent pool, that has a good work ethic and is free of labour hassles, inspite of the general perception that Gujaratis would rather be entrepreneurs than employees," Balaji said.
The MEtS also included sectors like auto and auto ancillary, healthcare, education, training and consultancy, manufacturing, energy, BFSI, chemicals and allied.
The Chennai-based Ma Foi is part of the euro 6.46 billion Dutch staffing major Vedior NV, which holds 76 per cent equity in the Rs 122 crore turnover company.