The Hindu Business Line : Telecom tops IT in employment growth

EVER wondered as to which sector is attracting the cream of India's business professionals. It's telecommunications. According to estimates of the World Bank, employment in the telecommunications sector has grown by 33 per cent since 1994, the highest growth among all the sectors in the services industry. This is higher than even the IT industry, which has seen a 20 per cent growth in employment.

While the Word Bank numbers, released in its recent report on `India's Services Revolution,' is for the period between 1994 and 2000, head-hunters and recruiters say that telecom is still the favourite among higher level professionals.

Thanks to the aggressive rollout of a countrywide network, operators like Reliance Infocomm, Tata Teleservices and Bharti have gone on a hiring overdrive.

Mr Amit Bose, President, Tata Teleservices Ltd (TTSL), says, "There have been significant growth opportunities in the telecom sector over the last few years.

From a career point of view, telecom sector continues to offer growth and new learning as the sector matures and the business opportunities expand.

This has been spurred by our expansion plans whereby we have increased the geographies being addressed by TTSL from six States to a pan-India presence."

TTSL's employee strength is presently around 6,400 and is estimated to be around 7,500 by the close of the financial year.

Similarly, Reliance Infocomm employs 20,000 professionals directly and another 20,000 indirectly through its retail chain.

Bharti Tele-Ventures, the other major recruiter, has taken over 500 people in the last one year to take its total strength to over 5,000.

And, with new networks and businesses being rolled out, this number is expected to grow exponentially in the coming months.

The growth can also be attributed to the large number of telecom equipment manufacturers and applications developers from Korea, China and Europe foraying into the Indian market in their bid to take a share of the pie in the booming telecom industry.

"Telecom is attracting a lot of people. We know of a number of executives who have moved from the FMCG industry, like from Coke and Pepsi, to telecom companies. But the biggest exodus seems to be from the IT sector because of its technological similarity with the telecom industry," said an executive of an online employment agency.

According to the World Bank, telecom has seen a higher employment growth rate owing to the aggressive liberalisation policy.

Taking a cue from the demand for telecom professionals, top educational institutions have begun specialised courses in telecommunication management.

Symbiosis in Pune and Amity in Delhi are examples of such institutions. Even state-owned Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) has set up a training facility for telecom engineers in Mumbai.

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