2009: Jobs go from killing fields to hiring valley

NEW DELHI: There could have been no worse start to a year than 2009 for the job market, but as the days passed by hope sprouted from the ashes of millions of jobs killed during the recession.

With the financial crisis ebbing, the pace of vanishing employment has come down in recent months as against an average of a whopping 9,000 job losses daily in the beginning of this year.

The nomenclatures for giving pink slips took different names with a few calling it just layoffs and terminations, while many others stuck to descriptions like right sizing and voluntary separation packages.

Moreover, cost saving measures and slump in demand were cited as the reasons by companies for resorting to laying off employees. Cut to the present, reviving economies are slowly reversing the trend of job cuts.

Better growth numbers especially from the developed nations like the US and Japan, seem to have helped in improving the sentiment in the employment market. For instance, after hovering at a 26-year-high of 10.2 per cent, the American jobless rate slipped to 10 per cent in November.

Reflecting the improving sentiment in India, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has reported that as many as five lakh jobs were created in the third quarter following the government's stimulus measures.