Rooftop solar plants to create 3.25L jobs in 10 years

Small rooftop solar power plants alone are likely to create 3.25 lakh jobs cumulatively in the next ten years in India, says a report.

“The small rooftop scenario (sector) would contribute the most to job creation, with around 3,25,000 cumulative new jobs in next ten years,” a report by Bridge to India, a company engaged in businesses like Strategic Consulting, Market Intelligence and Project Development, said.

The supply chain for small rooftop systems would include many intermediaries, spreading margins across more layers, it said.

The report divided the solar power sector into four segments – small rooftops, large rooftops, utility scale projects and ultra mega projects.

The average size of a small rooftop solar is 3 KWp (kilowatt peak), the power achieved by a solar module under full solar radiation. The average size of a large scale rooftop is 250 KWp, utility scale project 20 MW and that of ultra mega solar scheme is 1,000 MWp or 1 GWp.

In large rooftop systems, around 2.20 lakh cumulative jobs and in the utility scale scenario around 71,000 cumulative jobs will be created in the next 10 years.

The report added that the least number of jobs will be created in the ultra mega scale category. The total number of jobs in this scenario comes to only around 63,000 in ten years.

The general policy recommendations to enable the sector to grow under any of the four scenarios is creating transparent and dependable solar policies to encourage Indian and international investment.

They also include making available better financing instruments whether related to the end-consumer or infrastructure finance, making the electricity market more competitive and transparent with respect to power tariffs and grid usage and rules.

At present, the country’s installed solar power capacity stands at about 2,600 MW. The government has plans to scale this capacity up to 20,000 MW by 2022.

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Modi’s heavy technology investments will drive jobs

The sectors which will see an influx owing to technology uprising includes agriculture, healthcare, manufacturing and infrastructure especially in core departments such as railways, highways, roads, BFSI, retail and services…

India is poised to become an innovation and a manufacturing hub with the Modi’s Government impetus on heavy technology investments and zero-defect manufacturing. The first 100 days of the new government has already demonstrated a positive impact on the economy as well as the jobs market.

According to Praveen Bhadada, senior director, Zinnov, a leading management consultancy, the stage is all set to create a long term sustainable growth and reposition India on the global map. The positive track record of the new government has instilled hope for an economic turnaround in citizens and investors. “Technology, by means of digitisation in sectors such as agriculture, manufacturing, healthcare, infrastructure and education, will attract a USD 26 billion investment from the government in the years 2014-15.”

Talking about how the investment in technology will spell out in terms of jobs, he mentioned that focus on technology helps in ensuring the global competitiveness of organisations and creates jobs for technology professionals, especially honed in cloud mobility, analytics and IoT (Internet of Things).

The sectors which will see an influx owing to this technology uprising includes agriculture, healthcare, manufacturing, infrastructure especially in core departments such as railways, highways, roads, BFSI, retail and services, added Bhadada.

Ø  Digitisation: In focus across government functions

There is good opportunity for technology MNCs to target digitisation across government functions. The new government plans to take digitalisation to the next level by implementing the digitalisation of agriculture & PDS data, enabling e-governance & m-governance, facilitating the National Rural Internet and Technology Mission, using IT for real time information gathering, and the digitisation of all government files. In the past, the government has engaged multiple MNCs such as IBM, HP and Cisco for digitisation projects.

Ø  Technology: Establishing next generation infrastructure

The Indian government plans to invest USD11 billion in key focus areas to drive the next wave of technology-backed infrastructure growth. The key focus is to create national optical-fibre networks and build 100 smart cities with high-speed digital highways along with national solar missions and national gas grids. To fulfil this task, the demand for technology skill-sets across all experience levels will rise.

Ø  India: The global manufacturing hub

With Prime Minister Modi’s ‘Make in India’ campaign to help India transform into a global hub for manufacturing, Bhadada believes the Indian Manufacturing Industry presents a USD 8 billion opportunity for the ICT sector by 2017. With the government’s push for manufacturing backed by increasing adoption of IT and increasing relevance of IoT in manufacturing will help create more jobs.

To support the plan, the government has also planned to set up 14 IITs, IIMs and AIIMs to develop an innovative ecosystem fostering high quality research. “The idea is to boost India centric product development for global consumption. This ecosystem will also allow joint R&D efforts across industries for accentuated product development”.

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Yahoo starts fresh layoffs in India

Internet firm Yahoo has started a fresh set of layoffs in India, affecting hundreds, as it seeks to consolidate its product engineering teams at its headquarters in Sunnyvale. While senior executives will be offered a position in Sunnyvale, a majority have been handed pink slips, said a source.

India operations will be reduced to support and operations functions. Yahoo India R&D head Hari Vasudev and a few other senior executives have been asked to move to the US. Amit Dayal, vice president of search and marketplaces, has already shifted there.

Ø  Hiring stopped a year ago

Vasudev had taken over from the then Yahoo India R&D head, Shouvick Mukherjee, who himself had moved to Sunnyvale in 2013.

“The writing was on the wall. They’d stopped hiring about a year ago and the layoffs picked up speed in the last couple of weeks,” the recruiter said. Yahoo said in a statement that it will continue to have a presence in India but is looking to consolidate some teams into fewer offices.

In 2002, Yahoo was one of the first multinational corporations to set up research & development in India and others such as Google followed suit. At the time, it was Yahoo’s second-largest R&D centre outside the United States.

Yahoo appointed former Google executive Marissa Mayer to turn around the company’s fortunes in 2012. Under Mayer, Yahoo has bought social networking platform Tumblr, mobile analytics firm Flurry and new aggregator Summly. It also received a $5 billion windfall from the IPO of Chinese ecommerce company Alibaba.

Experts pointed out that a few other companies have moved major product development out of India, including Google, Cisco, Broadcom and Texas Instruments that have shifted parts of their product engineering closer to their headquarters.

Sharad Sharma, former CEO of Yahoo India R&D, said the trend is due to a combination of factors such as politics, changing structure of technology teams and the perception in Silicon Valley.

“It is not acceptable any more in the United States to hire in India at their expense,” said Sharma. Technology teams have also become smaller with each having specialist roles. “The lack of specialists for each team means such teams aren’t getting created anymore and it is affecting India adversely,” said Sharma, founding member of software products thinktank iSpirt.

The success of companies like Apple and Facebook in emerging markets has also created the perception that products for emerging markets can be made from the Valley

Large companies have started focusing on fewer products and that could be one reason, said an industry expert who requested anonymity. The growth of agile product development methodology also requires more and more co-location, he said.

Pari Natarajan, head of market expansion advisory firm Zinnov, however, said that India remains an attractive destination for companies to set up offshore R&D centres.

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Hiring records 14% growth; IT/Telecom shine

The Indian job market is touching new highs with the IT/Telecom industry writing its strongest growth story with a 20 per cent increase in jobs in just one month, reports RecruiteX, the Jobs Index by TimesJobs.com. The index recorded a 14 per cent increase in September 2014 over August 2014. From January 2014 to September 2014 period, there has been a 21 per cent increase in demand for IT/Telecom professionals, shows RecruiteX. This is clearly an exciting time for IT job-seekers in India Inc. They never had it so good in recent times.

Ø  Demand doubled for Senior IT professionals

The hiring pattern is strong across all levels in the IT/Telecom industry. The time is best for senior IT professionals to look for a job. Job opportunities have doubled for senior IT professionals with over 20 years of experience, with a 67 per cent increase from January 2014 to September 2014 period. IT professionals with 10-15 years experience reported a 20 per cent increase during the same period.

As per the data, software engineers, application programmers, database administrators (DBA), graphic designers/animators/web designers and project leaders/project managers are the hottest jobs in the IT industry, currently.

Ø  Jobs galore across industries

The good news is that the abundance in jobs is not limited to the IT/Telecom industry only. The ITeS/BPO industry has also reported an 18 per cent increase in job postings in September 2014. Hiring in high-volume sectors such as BFSI, retail, healthcare/pharmaceutical/biotechnology is on a revival mode. Post the announcement of Prime Minister Modi’s ‘Make in India’ campaign, hiring has stabilised in manufacturing driven sectors such as manufacturing/engineering, automobiles/auto components, consumer durables/FMCG and projects/infrastructure in September 2014 over August 2014.

According to the RecruiteX, employers are actively looking for Research and Development professionals as they witnessed a 27 per cent growth in jobs in September 2014. A strong demand pattern is also observed for HR/Training and Administrative profiles. Customer-centric profiles such as customer/service and marketing & advertising are also in demand.

Ø  Delhi Tops Recruitment Charts

Among the top metros, Delhi NCR is leading the recruitment charts with a 21 per cent increase in job postings followed by Bangalore. In tier I locations, Hyderabad reported a double-digit growth in demand.

Mid-level hiring, professionals with 5-10 years experience, was upbeat in September 2014. The demand for over 20 years experience and 2-5 years experience reported a 10 and 12 per cent growth, respectively.

Considering the current pattern, it seems the Indian job market will stabilise in the coming months as the major sectors are on a revival mode and stabilising hiring activity across core and support functions.

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Air India may hire more cabin crew to raise standards

Air India's top executives are set to renew discussions on hiring additional cabin crew as a way of "improving service standards" after the national carrier recently joined global airline group Star Alliance 

The airline's customer-service division has raised the issue but no number has yet been proposed to the human resources department.

The proposal would go against the grain of Air India's efforts to cut its massive wage bill. The airline hasn't made any such recruitment in the past few years, though a proposal had been made last year too to hire cabin crew.

Air India has 3,400 cabin crew of its own and another 800 on contract. Before getting into Star Alliance, the airline had an internal target to cut the number to 2,100. The Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), India's aviation regulator, has stipulated a minimum number of cabin crew for each aircraft type, but airlines usually deploy more. "For instance, for a 787 Dreamliner, the minimum number is seven, which can be increased to nine. But now there may be a proposal for 11". 

Air India on June 23 became the 27th member of the alliance, which includes Lufthansa and Singapore Airlines. Air India has in the past six months terminated 45 cabin crew on ground of absenteeism and will be serving final notices to 59 more over the next month and half. Air India — once synonymous with its royal mascot, the Maharajah — has in the past seven years made heavy losses after a hasty merger with erstwhile domestic carrier Indian Airlines.

The airline has been hit by high by high fuel costs and tough competition but is also plagued by overstaffing. Being state-run, it also has to operate on some unprofitable routes. It has been working hard to reduce costs. Last January, it implemented a 25% salary cut across employees, although it also promoted 6,000 of them. It eliminated several perks, including one that allowed employees to get cash against sick leaves that they didn't avail of.

Air India's salary bill has reduced by Rs 400 crore in two years to Rs 3,100 crore in the fiscal year ended on March 31, 2014. Its revenue per employee increased to Rs 99 lakh from Rs 59 lakh in 2011-12, while expenditure reduced to Rs 13 lakh per staff fromRs 17 lakh. Its losses last year reduced by a quarter to about Rs 4,000 crore. Air India currently has 23,034 employees, down from more than 33,000 at the time of the merger.

The carrier in January hived off its ground handing and engineering operations into two separate units. Barring employees in those, its headcount is just above 13,000, the executive said. It also employs 3,500 on contract and 2,200 casual labourers 

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Honda plans to hire 1,000 people in India by end of FY'15

Japanese auto major Honda Motor Company plans to hire around 1,000 people in India as it looks to start a second production shift at its plant here by the end of this financial year.

The company's wholly-owned subsidiary Honda Cars India Ltd (HCIL) is targeting an almost 50 per cent jump in sales to 2 lakh units in 2014-15.

"When we will start the second shift at the Tapukara facility, we will require more manpower. We think we will add 800-1,000 people in our overall headcount in India by the end of this fiscal," HCIL Senior Vice President (Marketing and Sales) Jnaneswar Sen told PTI here.

HCIL currently has a total strength of around 9,000 employees through direct and indirect employment at its two facilities in Greater Noida and Tapukara, he added.

"Over 3,000 people are working at this moment in the Tapukara complex, of which 2,200 are direct staff of HCIL.

All the new people that we are planning to hire will be employed here," Sen said.

The total installed capacity of the plant is 1.2 lakh units in two shifts and the company may also consider to ramp it up in the next 2-3 years as it targets sales of 3 lakh units a year by 2016-17, he added.

Honda Motor Company also plans to nearly double sourcing of auto components, including engine parts, from India to over Rs 800 crore during 2014-15.

The company has invested Rs 3,526 crore on the Tapukara plant, which also makes engines and exports components to South-East Asia, the UK and Latin America.

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Companies Best Pay & Perks

Everyone wants to work for an organisation which knows for its competitive base salaries and innovative and alluring benefits.

This is particularly true in today’s economic climate where salary is at the forefront of everyone’s minds – from the fast-food workers in America demanding higher minimum wages, to Asia’s ongoing struggle with pay disparity.

Glassdoor has just released its latest compilation of the top organisations for compensation and benefits, which is based on the workplace insights of employees via their website.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the technology industry makes up almost half of the list, with companies like Google (1st), Facebook (3rd), Adobe (4th) and Epic (5th) rounding up the top five. Costo (2nd) is the only retailer to make the list.Take a look at which companies made the list this year.

1. Google

2. Costco

3. Facebook

4. Adobe

5. Epic

6. Intuit

7. USAA

8. Chevron

9. Salesforce.com

10. Monsanto

11. Genentech

12. Kaiser Permanente

13. Qualcomm

14. Riverbed

15. Verizon

16. Vmware

17. T-Mobile

18. Microsoft

19. Amgen

20. Pfizer

21. Southern California Edison

22. Orbitz

23. Procter & Gamble

24. Union Pacific

25. eBay

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Top Paid CEO's of Top 100 companies world wide

"Equilar 100 CEO pay study" has released the list of the companies Top paid CEO's in the world.

This year marks Equilar’s eighth annual study of CEO pay at the largest U.S. pubThis year marks Equilar’s eighth annual study of CEO pay at the largest U.S. public companies. As part of the collaboration with The New York Times, Equilar provides data on compensation, professional history, and wealth events for the top executives.lic companies. As part of the collaboration with The New York Times, Equilar provides data on compensation, professional history, and wealth events for the top executives.

As per the detials of the study:

• The median pay for the 100 CEOs on the list was $13.9 million, an increase of 9 percent over the previous year.
• Oracle’s Larry Ellison remains at the top of the list with $78.4 million, marking the seventh consecutive year he has been in the top three in this study. Bob Iger of Disney and Rupert Murdoch of Twenty-First Century Fox round out the top three.
• The lowest-paid CEO on the list is Larry Page at Google with $1.
• Pay increased for 50 CEOs who served at least 2 full years in the position.

source: http://www.equilar.com/nytimes/the-new-york-times-100-highest-paid-ceos

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HR professionals give tips to enhance efficiency

Addressing a session on 'HR for emergent India' organized by CII here on Friday, Jagadeesh said: "FM holds ownership of organizations. So it will help if both HR and FM teams bring out quality works from employees. HR teams alone cannot take organizations or employees to greater heights."

"Despite having an innovative mindset, many Indian companies have failed to produce quality works. HR teams must measure the quality of challenges to produce quality works. Available HR talent determines the quality of organizations. So HR teams must ensure quality HR, which is vital for any organization's development," Jagadeesh pointed out. Stressing on productivity, he said: "To maintain high-performance culture, organizations should produce good leaders. Onus should not be laid only on HR team. Employees should also be made equally accountable. Organizations need to train their employees in tackling problems."

Source: Times Of India

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