PUBLIC SECTORS SET TO BOOM

APPLICATIONS INVITED Railways, LIC, PWD, Delhi Metro and BSNL out to seek hundreds of thousands of skilled employees

Seeking hundreds of employees

NEW DELHI: Looking for a job? Worried about the cautious and muted hiring sentiment of the private sector? Do not fret, for there’s a new and unexpected job avenue ready to explode.

More than 31,000 new openings are up for grabs in sectors including banks, railways, insurance, public works departments, Delhi Metro Rail Corp (DMRC) and companies such as Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd ( BSNL). A surge in business volumes and rise in the number of retirements are making public sector units (PSUs) the new job destinations.

While applications are invited for helpers, clerks, doctors, accountants, officers and sundry technicians at different PSUs, public sector banks (PSBs) are also planning to hire aggressively for the next two years to replace 150,000 employees due to retire in 2015. This would highest ever recruitment drive by the industry in over a decade.

“All banks have firmed up mega expansion plans, which would require additional manpower,” said M Narendra, chairman, Indian Overseas Bank. “For the next two-three years, the banking sector would hire over 63,000 employees each year.”

As per a 2010 report by the government-constituted Khandelwal committee on human resource policies in PSBs, over 22,000 employees will retire in 2012-13. This number is expected to go up to 30,000 in 2014-15. “For all government organisations, finding the right talent is a problem as outgoing employees are those who handled the work for last 30 years or so,” said Rituparna Chakraborty, vice- president, Indian Staffing Federation.

When the government began its reforms drive more than two decades ago, PSUs were considered over-staffed. But things changed when companies began lowering headcount by putting a freeze on new hiring and left posts of retiring officials unfilled.

"While other sectors like railways and police force were acutely understaffed, the banking sector witnessed the abolition of the Banking Service Recruitment Board itself in 2002 and individual banks were given a free hand on hiring," said a banker requesting anonymity. The Railway Recruitment Board (RRB) is expected to offer 140,000 jobs in 2013.