Tags:
Journalism of Courage
MUMBAI, February 5: Economic recession has cast a cruel smirk on Mumbai’s management graduates, who are finding to their horror that salaries on offer this year are not half of what they used to be. Once the envy of every job-hopeful, the cream of the employment cadre has been relegated to negotiating with corporates for salaries an embarassingly low as Rs 4 lakh per annum in the country’s financial capital. And, barring one instance, there were no dollar tags attached to the deals.
Management students in the city got their first inkling of the country’s ailing economy when recruitment time rolled around on campus at the beginning of the 1999 season. They found that jobs offering Rs 50,000 per month, which students had swiped as recently as last year, had all but vanished from the market; some had to even scrape the bottom of the bowl for a paltry Rs 10,000. The most lucrative had a price-tag of, hold your breath, Rs 22,000. Recession, cost-cutting by corporates and outdated syllabi, they realised, had yanked the rug from under their feet. And ouch, did it hurt!
Even Mumbai’s premier Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, wrangled a lone overseas deal among its 80-odd students, says one of its directors. The price tag: US $ 100,000 per annum. Other institutes scored a blank.
Says K Neelakantan of SIES College of Management: “This year, some of our students have been hired for as little as Rs 1.2-3.5 per annum. This is far less than what was on offer in previous years.”
At the N M Institute of Management, the topper managed to land a job with a multi-national for Rs 5.1 lakh per annum, the highest salary in the institute. The lowest bidder walked away with a miserable Rs 2.5 lakh.
Says Rajesh Tanwar, manager, corporate relations, N M Institute: “Salaries have shrunk due to recession. But we have somehow managed to place all our 214 students.”
There are, of course, some industries where things are not so bleak. Management consultant firms are still investing in intellectual capital Also, riding on the Y2K boom, information technology companies are also on a hiring spree.
But there is another snag. Apart from a couple of institutions, management institutes in Mumbai are not exactly the first choice among mumti-national companies and overseas firms. “While IIM students have been offered an average Rs 45,000 per month, we have to make do with half of that,” says the exasperated head of a Mumbai-based management college. “No matter how much we re-negotiate, corporates are reluctant to increase their offers,” he adds.
Corporates explain that lack of growth and expansion have slashed employment opportunities. The bottomline: supply of management graduates far outstrips demand. “There are more students these days than jobs. At present, only software and fast-moving consumer goods industries are booming, which need very specialised manpower skills. Thus, finance, marketing, sales and personnel management students are less in demand, explains an official of the Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India.
Also, restructuring, a growing trend, has brought its own share of troubles. Almost all foreign institutional investors have cut their workforce, comprising mainly of management graduates. Even foreign banks, once the highest salary providers, have begun to retrench employees. And, Standard Chartered Bank and Bank of America are just two among the foreign banks which have snubbed management institutes in Mumbai this year.
