The slowdown in the non-banking and finance companies (NBFCs) sector — following the IL&FS crisis — will see hiring in the financial services sector taper off.
The sector has grown at a blistering pace in the last 10 years — two lakh jobs are estimated to have been added in the last two years alone. Indeed, lenders had been building up their teams, recruiting at a rate of annualised 15% through H12018. But the addition to the headcount in 2019 could be less than 10%, says Randstad India MD and CEO Paul Dupuis, who points out the sector now faces several challenges.
Sub segments such as insurance and financial technology, though could buck the trend. General insurers beefed up their teams by 25-30% in 2018 and the momentum could continue in 2019. Also, professionals who are tech-savvy can hope to fill key positions in finance companies and banks. Shine.com CEO Zairus Master expects that with the
Indian fintech industry poised to reach $2.4 billion by 2020, more pure-finance organisations will adopt technology in some form. “For instance, 75% of financial services firms have expressed the intention to adopt blockchain into their systems and processes by 2020,” Master said.
But for lenders in general, the addition to the headcount in the second half of 2018 was just 3%. Michael Page India regional director (BFSI) Anshul Lodha expects the softness to continue till June. “There was a 50% dip in incremental hiring for NBFCs versus the January-June 2018 period. Several NBFCs which were expanding their operations have held back,” he said.
Since it was primarily the NBFCs and micro-finance companies which were recruiting, hiring in banks rose by about 5-6% last year, notes a Michael Page report.
Currently, says Mercer Mettl CEO Siddhartha Gupta, NBFCs are looking for CXOs, though that is proving to be hard with not enough suitable candidates. Interestingly, Gupta believes strong candidates today have the upper hand. “Employers who offer the best compensationand benefits are the winners,” Gupta said.
According to Mercer Mettl’s ‘State of Talent Acquisition Report 2019’ — a survey of over 900 organisations from different sectors — 100% of BFSI organisations mentioned talent and hiring as pain points. In the 2018 report about 90% of BFSI companies had listed talent and hiring as pain points.
[“source=financialexpress”]
