by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate Jobs, Employment, News, Private Jobs
Sonipat (Haryana) : Turning a common perception on its head, international affairs students of O.P. Jindal Global University here have shown that pursuing a so-called “conventional” course can also open several doors of recruitment including in multinational companies, think tanks and international NGOs.
This year, Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC), Care India and Development Alternatives led the recruitment for the students of the Jindal School of International Affairs (JSIA), the university said in a statement on Monday.
The corporate and non-profit institutions which recruited JSIA’s students include KPMG, Grant Thornton, Justice and Care, Deloitte, CREA, ESSAR Foundation, CRY, Godrej Culture Lab, Akshaya Patra Foundation, Atma Foundation, Sattva Consulting, The Centre for Internet and Society, and Global Trust.
“In the past, the study of international affairs was seen as leading only to civil service jobs or higher education ending in academic jobs,” said C. Raj Kumar, Vice Chancellor, O.P. Jindal Global University.
“JSIA has diversified the field significantly and showed the path to a variety of full-time positions for its graduating students,” he added.
JSIA combines the scholarly weights of three inter-related disciplines — international relations, international law and international business.
“We expect several domestic and international non-profit and for-profit entities to hire from our future graduating batch as several organisations have signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoUs) with our university for offering internships to our students,” Sreeram Chaulia, Dean of JSIA.
More than 40 organisations have led JSIA to achieve 95 per cent internship placements in diversified fields this year, the statement said.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate Jobs, Employment, Opinions
By Sanjiv Kataria,
When Infosys founder N.R. Narayana Murthy says the trend of stagnation of starting salaries for software engineers for six to seven years is “worrisome”, we should be nervous. What does it imply for the job market? It’s only a handful of engineering graduates who get six-digit dollar offers.
As you look beyond the top 200 colleges in India, the number of placements is down dramatically over the past few years. Simply put, there are more engineering seats in Indian colleges than students, and there are more graduates than there are jobs.
The demand-supply gap is worse in engineering schools in tier 2 and tier 3 cities. Very few recruiters approach these colleges because they are remotely located, even knowing it would mean missing out on brilliant talent.
The news of a revival of economic indices — manufacturing, core sector expansion, merchandise exports — is buttressed by anecdotal references to Tata Steel and infrastructure major L&T seeing a demand surge from fast-tracked infrastructure projects. The IT sector, which once absorbed engineers like a sponge does water, expects the addition of only 200,000 new jobs in 2018, in the face of a series of protectionist moves being brought in by the US, the biggest market for the $150 billion sunrise sector.
Analysts say new job openings in digital technologies, e-commerce and Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the domestic IT sector can at best add between 50,000 to 100,000 in a country that produces a million engineering graduates each year.
Everyone is worried — students, parents, college managements, including the engineering and management education accrediting body, the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). In fact, AICTE has since last year mandated that all engineering colleges should let their students participate in a semester-long internship in industry.
The rapid growth of colleges in engineering and management created an excess capacity in most streams in the past. These colleges now have the flexibility to discontinue streams that don’t attract enough students and start programmes in emerging technologies while using the same infrastructure, much along the lines of broad-banding of manufacturing capacity.
The AICTE is monitoring engineering colleges that are not attracting enough students and where output quality is suspect in terms of learning outcomes. Closure of 300 such colleges is already on the cards. This move will check the oversupply of engineering seats in the country going forward.
Simultaneously, AICTE has reached out to assessment platforms like HireMee to assess engineering students to discover aptitude, logical reasoning, communication and core technical skills. This will help potential employers to access students from lesser-known, difficult-to-reach engineering colleges for suitable job openings. This project for social good can lead to a democratisation of job opportunities as it comes without any cost, either to students or the colleges.
The results of a proctored computer-assisted test by HireMee using a comprehensive assessment framework will present to recruiters different dimensions of personality and behavioural styles.
The government is equally committed to help identify the top 20 higher education institutions of eminence to achieve excellence on a global level and empower them with the wherewithal to compete with their international counterparts.
These institutions will be free to enter academic collaboration with the top 500 institutions in the world, enjoy flexibility, fix course structure, curriculum and syllabi. The scheme will enable Indian students to get world-class education and research facilities within the country.
The education policymakers are equally convinced that the curriculum has to be in tune with the market needs and, therefore, the rate of change of curriculum has to keep pace with the new technology, subjects and skills that are needed today. This is where behavioural assessment can play a big role in checking suitability for jobs.
The recent FICCI, EY and Nasscom report on “Future of Jobs in India” says that by 2022 nine per cent of India’s estimated 600 million work force will be deployed in new job roles that do not exist today. This means that once out of classrooms, the workforce has to imbibe new skills, master new technologies. Those who wish to stay ahead of the curve and stay employable will need to watch the changing technology trends and master them so that they have the first-mover advantage.
The education system, irrespective of the streams they impart education in, will have to introduce among students a new learnability trait that will instill among them a willingness to anticipate and accept change. Once out of the education system and in jobs, they will have to keep alive a strong desire to master new technologies, new skills.
These efforts at rationalising, re-building and strengthening the Indian higher education system offer no shortcuts and could take decades even after we stay focused and committed to achieving global excellence in education.
(Sanjiv Kataria has been NIIT’s brand custodian for nearly two decades. The views expressed are personal. He can be reached at Sanjiv.kataria@gmail.com )
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | World
Washington : US Federal Reserve has raised the benchmark interest rates for the third time this year and maintained the forecast of three more rate hikes in 2018, as the economy and job market continued solid growth.
“In view of realized and expected labor market conditions and inflation, the (Federal Open Market) Committee decided to raise the target range for the federal funds rate to 1.25 to 1.5 per cent,” said the Fed in a statement on Wednesday after concluding two-day monetary policy meeting, Xinhua reported.
In December 2015, the central bank first raised the interest rates from nearly zero and hiked three more respectively in December 2016, March, and June this year. It also started to reduce its $4.5 trillion balance sheet from October this year.
The decision to raise interest rates is based on the assessment that the job market will remain strong growth. The central bank adjusted the statement language about the job market, painting a rosy outlook.
“This change highlights that the committee expects the labor market to remain strong, with sustained job creation, ample opportunities for workers and rising wages,” Fed Chair Janet Yellen said on Wednesday at her last press conference before her four-year term ends early next year.
According to the quarterly economic projections released the same day, Fed officials expected the unemployment rate will maintain at 4.1 per cent by the end of 2017, lower than September’s forecast of 4.3 per cent. It will further drop to 3.9 per cent in 2018.
She emphasized the risks of labor market overheating, saying that it would require the central bank to tighten monetary policy abruptly, jeopardizing economic expansion.
Fed officials also raised their forecast for economic outlook. According to their forecast, the US economy will grow 2.5 per cent both in 2017 and 2018, higher than their forecasts in September which projected a 2.4 per cent growth for 2017 and 2.1 per cent increase for 2018.
“Participants generally identified changes in tax policy as a factor supporting this modestly stronger outlook, although many noted that much uncertainty remains,” said Yellen.
During the conference, Yellen cautioned that the new forecasts shouldn’t be viewed as estimates of the impact of the tax policy and stressed the uncertainty about the impact.
Fed officials, including herself, widely believed that the tax policy would tend to provide only “modest” lift to GDP growth in the coming years, said Yellen.
On this expectation, Fed officials largely kept their forecasts for inflation outlook and the pace of future rate hikes unchanged.
They expected the inflation would grow 1.7 per cent in 2017 and further strengthen to 1.9 per cent in 2018, and still envisioned three more rate hikes in 2018, unchanged from their forecast in September.
The forecasts indicated that Fed officials saw no reason to accelerate the pace of future rate hikes, although the proposed tax cuts would modestly boost the growth.
Yellen recognized that the soft inflation was one of the risks the policymakers were facing. However, she said that Fed officials continued to believe that the factors which were holding down inflation this year were likely to prove transitory.
They continued to expect the inflation will go up to the central bank’s 2 per cent target in the medium term, said Yellen.
In view of the rather low inflation reading, Yellen stressed that it’s appropriate for the central bank to tighten monetary policy gradually.
At the press conference, Yellen noted that her nominated successor, Jerome Powell, has been part of the consensus shaping the Fed’s gradual rate hike strategy.
Powell, now a Fed governor, was nominated by President Donald Trump in November to replace Yellen when her terms ends in February, 2018.
Investors and market watchers widely expected that Powell will maintain the continuity of the monetary policy at the central bank.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate Jobs, Employment, Markets, Private Jobs, Technology
New Delhi : After having witnessed a spell of layoffs in the previous quarter, hiring in the IT and software industry has witnessed a surge of 9 per cent year-on-year (yoy) during July 2017, a Naukri.com survey said here on Thursday.
According to the survey, the Naukri JobSpeak index rose by 2 per cent in July 2017 indicating signs of recovery in the job market.
Data collected by the job site showed that key industries like banking or financial services saw a growth of seven per cent, followed by insurance of 17 per cent and automobiles of 5 per cent in July 2017 compared with the corresponding month of 2016.
However, it noted that business process outsourcing (BPO) and knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) jobs dipped by 17 per cent during the period under review.
“Looks like the job market is showing signs of recovery. The Jobspeak index for July has shown a yoy growth of 2 per cent, primarily driven by a 9 per cent growth in the IT sector,” V. Suresh, Chief Sales Officer, Naukri.com, said in a statement.
“Having said that, the market is still volatile and we can expect this to continue for a few more months before it heads north,” he added.
The survey said nine cities — out of 13 tracked — recorded an increase in hiring activities in July 2017 in comparison with July 2016.
“The index for Delhi/NCR, Mumbai and Bengaluru grew by 12 per cent, 17 per cent and 12 per cent respectively,” the survey said.
“While Chennai saw a dip of 10 per cent in hiring activity, Hyderabad recorded a 19 per cent increase during the same period.”
—IANS
