News

HR Buzz – May 21, 2013

S&P retains negative outlook on India

Business Standard / The Hindu Business Line

Standard & Poor’s (S&P) has retained the lowest investment grade for the Indian economy amid worsening public finances and political gridlock, The Hindu Business Line reports. The rating agency warned of a downgrade if India did not hasten its reform process. For this, the Government would need to improve the investment climate, S&P said. However, there was no likelihood of a rating revision in the foreseeable future. S&P had assigned India BBB- long-term and A-3 short-term sovereign ratings, a notch above junk grade. Fitch had cut the outlook on ratings to negative from stable in April last year. The negative outlook signalled at least a one-in-...

HR Buzz – May 20, 2013

Top salary earners get some respite on I-T returns

Business Standard

Salary earners may escape the net of income-tax (I-T) authorities on the lookout for high net worth individuals (HNIs), Business Standard reports. Owners of proprietary business and partners in firms with annual income topping Rs 25 lakh will now have to declare their wealth in a separate disclosure in their I-T return (ITR) forms. They will have to provide details of moveable assets such as vehicles, yachts, aircraft, bullion, jewellery, works of art, sculptures and paintings. This disclosure format, included in the ITR forms for financial year 2013, will also ask for details of financial assets such as bank balances, shares, insurance...

HR Buzz – May 17, 2013

Moody’s sees India growth in 5.5-6.5% range

Business Standard

Rating agency Moody’s Investors Service said India is expected to attain growth levels of 5.5 percent to 6.5 percent in 2013, Business Standard reports. The country is struggling to boost investment and government steps to that end have been “relatively small in scope,” Moody’s said. The one percentage point range in the forecast was aimed at avoiding “spurious” precision and took into consideration significant changes that could potentially influence rating decisions, the agency said. The current account deficit was a persistent issue and CPI inflation was in double digits. Policymakers’ effort towards incentivising new investment and savings had fallen short, Moody’s noted. While...

HR Buzz – May 16, 2013

To correct wages, need to curb food inflation

The Hindu Business Line

Average wage levels in India respond less to cyclical variables such as growth, says Ashima Goyal in a Hindu Business Line report. According to Goyal, a professor of economics at Indira Gandhi Institute for Development Research, shift variables such as food price inflation have the most effect on wages. This tends to shift the entire aggregate supply (AS) curve upward. Hence, the aim of policies should be to try and affect the variables that lead to shifts in the AS curve. Since wages respond less to growth than “shift” factors, lower agricultural support price increases could anchor overall inflationary expectations. Similarly, rural real wages are still rising, though at a...

HR Buzz – May 15, 2013

Slowdown hurting young job market entrants most

The Hindu Business Line

Long-term trend in unemployment levels belie the story being told, that global recession has bottomed out and recovery is around the corner, says a report in The Hindu Business Line. The generation that has entered the labour force over the last five years has taken the worst hit. The International Labour Organization had put the global unemployment rate at 6 percent early this year, or 197 million people unemployed. The data does not include the 39 million who exited the workforce because they were unable to secure jobs. The situation is far worse in advanced economies. In at least 12 of these, the unemployment rate is 8 percent or more, and in seven it stretches to 10...

HR Buzz – May 14, 2013

Industrial growth totters at 1% in FY13

Business Standard

Growth in industrial output fell to an all-time low of 1.2 percent in FY13, Business Standard reports. The rate is lower than the 2 percent growth estimated at the beginning of the year. Output across sectors either contracted or halved compared to the previous year. Month-on-month, industrial production contracted 1.6 percent in March. The two major sectors, capital goods and consumer goods, grew at an extremely slow pace through FY13. Capital goods contracted 6.3 percent, compared to 4 percent in FY12. Manufacturing too has grown 1.2 percent in FY13 compared to 3 percent in FY12. The sector has a three-quarter weight in the index of industrial production, and a weakness is a cause for...

HR Buzz – May 13, 2013

ILO: Jobless youth set to hit 73 mn this year

The Hindu Business Line

The International Labour Organization (ILO) said some 73.4 million young people will be out of work in 2013, The Hindu Business Line reports. This is almost as high as the levels prevailing in 2009 when the economic crisis was at its peak. The European Union, West Asia and North Africa will be affected most. In developing countries such as India and China, about 60 percent of the population neither had work nor were studying or engaged in irregular employment, said the ILO report “Global Unemployment Trends 2007-13”. That means nearly two-thirds of the young generation in developing economies are not attaining their full economic potential. Most of them are turning to informal...

HR Buzz – May 10, 2013

Consumer confidence down on job concerns

Times of India

The BluFin consumer confidence index (CCI) of India fell 0.4 points in April amid job security concerns, Times of India reports. The employment sentiment index dropped for the second successive month, registering a fall of 1.3 points. Weakness in manufacturing, coupled with a slowdown in services, has adversely affected the Indian consumer, said Rashid Bilimoria, CEO, BluFin. Hiring has failed to pick up in the beginning of the fiscal. Industry body NASSCOM has scaled down hiring by 50,000 jobs. Job creation through structural reforms will be critical, he added. The present situation index fell slightly by 0.1 points...

HR Buzz – May 9, 2013

NCAER expects growth of 6.2% in FY14

Business Standard

The National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) has pegged the economic growth rate in 2013-14 at 6.2 percent, Business Standard reports. In its April 2013 Quarterly Review of the Economy, the think tank projected the agriculture sector to grow at 3.2 percent. A January forecast had estimated a growth rate of 2.9 percent. NCAER has also revised its projection for industrial growth from 4.5 percent to 4.4 percent for the last quarter of 2013-14. Services are expected to maintain growth at 7.7 percent. As a result, overall growth in the latest quarterly review of NCAER is expected to remain unchanged from the preliminary estimates made in January. Merchandise export growth may revive...

HR Buzz – May 8, 2013

Urban areas score over rural India in job creation
Times of India

Jobs in urban areas have grown faster, beating employment generation in rural areas for the first time in a decade, Times of India reports. According to the recent Census 2011 data, a total of eight crore jobs were created between 2001 and 2011. More than half of these were located in urban areas, although the population in cities and towns is just a third of the total. The trend has been attributed to more people migrating from unproductive farming in search of better prospects, and more areas getting defined as urban. Women’s employment in urban areas saw a massive increase of more than 74 percent since 2001, compared to just 38 percent for men. Significantly, the survey found that...