Gen Y moves @ speed of light
Restless employees want best out of life, refuse to stick with a job.
By Malini Goyal, TNN |
MUMBAI: Life is like a ticker — you need to keep moving fast, he says. Shuttling between 10 jobs and four cities in six years, N Chidambaram, 27, could not have moved faster. “I go by gut feel — if I like people and job, I don’t think — I just move,” the cost accountant says. His shortest stint so far — three months. And longest — 18 months.
It all began with Bombay Dyeing in 1999. Within three months, he was bored. Then followed a series of career moves, where he experimented with research, credit rating, financial services, a media house & KPOs. These days he’s with a media firm as research head.
Meet India’s serial job hoppers — changing their jobs, cities and sectors like they change their gadgets. Mostly under 30 years of age, this easily-bored generation is taking centre stage during the best of times. Recruiters are chasing professionals amid an ongoing talent war. Serial hoppers say jobs come to them on a platter, with better pay and bigger job profiles. Many fence-sitters, with no job-switch plans, say they jump after being wooed and tempted by placement consultants and job portals. Their numbers are growing rapidly.
Rajeev Gaur, VP, Timesjobs.com, said the level of attrition in India was not surprising, given that the increase in skilled manpower is not able to keep pace with India’s growth at 8%+ every year. He added: “According to a Nasscom report, the outsourcing sector is expected to face a shortage of 2,62,000 professionals by 2012.”
“One out of every six candidates, who puts his resume on website, are back in the job market within a year,” says Arun Tadanki, president, Monster India.
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Harish Bijoor Consult conducted a survey on job hopping spread over 15 years — 1990, ‘00 and ‘04. It found that on a scale of one to 10, propensity to change jobs in the old economy firms had surged from 2.2 in 1990 to 4.3 in ’00 and 6.7 in ’04. “I can easily guesstimate it to be around 7.2-7.3 today,” says Mr Bijoor. In 1990s, professionals between 25 years and 45 years of age were likely to change three jobs. Today, it has gone up to around eight. There are close to 400m workers in India. Around 50% or 200m of these are urban. About 40% of India’s workforce are under 30 years of age. So, urban workers under 30 years (Gen Y) will number around 80m. Every year, 15m new young workers may join the workforce, many of them in urban India. Now, allow for a lot of discounting.
Let’s take just 2% of around 100m (by ’08) Gen Y urban workers in the job market who may turn out to be job hoppers. At 2m, they will be small but a fairly influential lot because being well-educated and highly aspirational, they will land the best of jobs, be trendsetters and wield enormous clout in corporate corridors. Look at what 1m IT workers have done to setting HR standards in the country.
Mr Gaur confirmed the likelihood of the trend worsening: “Attrition in India is well below the world average and less than half of that in the US. Indian corporates shall have to come to terms with the fact that with growing opportunities cost of attracting and retaining talent is going to go up.”
Job hoppers are a product of the times. Whatever defined them as consumers — impulsive, aspirational and change-seeking — is now getting reflected at the workplace. Ask Chidambaram. Through 10 jobs, his best stint was the one which took him to the Carribean Islands. Why? “At 26, living on such an island for a few months was a big thing,” he says. Young and single, tempting job offers saw him shuttling between Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Bangalore.
It wasn’t easy. After Mumbai, Delhi came as a culture shock. His retired father, who counted gratuity years, frets every time he moves. But when Chidambaram looks back, he is happy at what he sees. In six years, he has risen to head research division of a media firm, earns good money and teaches at an institute for fun. He doubts if he’s made any friends after college. “Only acquaintances perhaps.”
Most educated urban Indians begin working earlier than in the past through internships and part-time works. With marriage age moving up, they are footloose far longer than in the past. Of the 55lakh resumes that timesjobs.com has, a majority of them want to relocate.
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Ask Biswarup Mandal, a 30-year-old IIT, IIM alumnus, who changed seven jobs in 10 years, all with the bluest of blue-chip firms, including GE, Cognizant, Tatas. “I’ve had some expectations from my job, and everywhere I went I was disillusioned,” he says. He no longer hops as frequently. “1I’ve reconciled to my fate. May be I’ve matured,” he says. Or perhaps, he says, he’s no longer a free bird, now that he is married.Take the case of Anand Kumar, 29, who changed four jobs in six years. A CA, his first job at Crisil was a brand-building exercise. In the process, he compromised on designation and salary. He had to be a B-school graduate to be a part of the management cadre at Crisil. Through naukri.com he landed his second job at a BPO. Then he moved to an I-banking firm, looking for that dream job.
Says Raman Roy, founder of Quatrro: “For most young workers, their first few jobs are just an extension of college.”
(Names of job hoppers changed on request)
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