Date:31/10/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/10/31/stories/2008103161881000.htm

Kerala - Kochi

Slowdown causes cut in pay

M.P. Praveen

KOCHI: Sunny Joseph (name changed) could not have cared less about the “global economic meltdown”. For him it was a phenomenon affecting faraway America and its people. Or so he believed. And then he got his pay cheque.

The meaning of the new economic world order dawned on him when his employer, a major Information Technology company, cut down his salary from Rs. 1.18 lakh to Rs. 62,500 per month without notice.

Asked about the cut in the salary, the very same three words were thrown at his face – global economic meltdown.

Ever since the economic slowdown was set in motion by the collapse of banking and financial institutions in the United States and later Europe, the employees in the IT sector are in a state of perpetual fear.

As a senior official of major IT Company at Infopark said, there is an unspoken fear among the employees. He forecasts that while skilled labour need not worry, the same cannot be said of those involved in, what he regards, as “basic BPO operations like attending customer calls.”

IT company officials were tight-lipped as to the impact of the global scenario and opened up only when ensured anonymity.

With many of the companies being listed and the stock market vacillating between bulls and bears, their apprehension was only natural.

Banking and financial accounting works outsourced from the U.S. and the Europe account for 40 to 45 per cent of India’s total turnover in the IT sector.

So when these sectors are affected it would obviously have a ripple effect here, another official said.

Companies have been forced to cut down on the “bench” strength – those recruited as a buffer for a future project. With the flow of new projects uncertain, recruitment is now strictly need-based.

Once again the employer is dictating the job scenario unlike the boom period when the employee, who came armed with multiple offers to choose from, had his say.

The employers would take the opportunity to “filter” the human resources and retain only quality hands, it is pointed out.

Most of the company officials ruled out massive job cuts.

The head of the Kochi centre of a major IT player pointed at a brighter aspect of this rather gloomy situation.