Summer jobs bring cheer
As industry rebounds and both services and manufacturing look up, students and young graduates can look at better prospects, report Vivek Sinha & Himani Chandna.
If you are a young graduate, the searing heat may be bad for your mood, but the sizzling hot job market could cheer you up.
For college students waiting to get a taste of self-earned money, or for business school sloggers looking for that right contact, exposure or project in between a course, this could be the right time to get cracking on both learning and earning.
Optimism has returned to industry and with growth at double-digit levels in industry as a whole and in manufacturing in particular, the mood is right.
So summer jobs—or two-month traineeships with a stipend---are back in the reckoning as companies add capacities and expand their distribution networks. Firms in sectors such as automobiles and auto components, consumer durables, software and information technology, banking and pharmaceuticals have been expanding and in the process offer more internship positions.
“It makes business sense for the company to engage college sophomores who during their stay understand about our production process and distribution network. Students gain on experience and the company can bank upon hiring them with some prior understanding about functions of our company,” said S.Y. Siddiqui, managing executive officer, human resources, finance and IT, Maruti Suzuki India.
In Delhi, the Commonwealth Games have thrown up a whole host of new summer jobs ranging from administration, event management, transport and catering services. “At present close to 1500 offers have been made and we will require another 700 during the games. The average salary will range from Rs 20,000 to Rs 70,000 per month,” said Lalit Bhanot, secretary general Commonwealth Games Organising Committee.
If the buzzwords last summer were retrenchment and shrinking capacities, this summer it is just the opposite. Companies are talking of capacity addition and growth.
“Summer jobs are offered only when only when something new is created or a company adds some new capacities. It is a pre-extension of demand,” said Kamal Karanth, Managing director for multinational staffing firm Kelly Services’ Indian arm.
Auto companies have been propped up by encouraging sales that have grown by 26.4 per cent year-on-year, while consumer durable companies too have been sizzling with a surge in sales of white goods like televisions, refrigerators and air conditioners and have revised their sales targets upwards. Mood has also been buoyant for software companies as recovery in US and European markets has brought in fresh orders.
The major beneficiaries of summer jobs are engineering and management students who find it easier to take jobs than their counterparts enrolled in other courses.
Siddiqui said his company is offering Pre Placement Offers (PPO) to around 15 candidates every year depending on their performance. A candidate with a PPO is assured of job at Maruti after he completes his course at engineering or management college.
Maruti, which sells maximum number of cars in the country offered close to 300 jobs to summer interns this year. “In fact, our hiring and internship positions never took a beating and employment opportunities have been robust at Maruti all these years,” said Siddiqui.
“We are expanding our production facilities that will be coupled with sales expansion. So requirements for more individuals increase by the day,” said a spokesperson for LG Electronics India.
This year LG has hired around 325 interns from various engineering and management schools as against 240 hired last year.
Same has been the case with its fellow durable major Samsung that plans to offer a greater number of internship positions this year echoed the view. Samsung did not give details but said the numbers this year will be more than last year.
The country’s number one software exporter TCS offered more than 1,200 positions for interns this year. Realtor Ansal API has also added close to 45 interns this summer compared with just 5 interns last year.