Buoyed by the bullish growth of the retail industry, India Inc sees increase in the hiring intentions in this sector.

A study by Manpower, one of the global leaders in the employment services industry, shows 4 percentage points increase in the net employment outlook (NEO) during the third quarter of 2007-08. The NEO for the second quarter (July-September) stood at +38%.

The study covered 4,922 companies, including 351 in the wholesale and retail sectors, spanning seven industries in India.

Soumen Basu, executive chairman of Manpower India, said: “We are seeing expansion of the retail segment despite a few resistances in some parts of the country. By and large, we can find increase in the number of bigger retail chains and shopping malls.”

Shashi Kanth, president (manpower) of Subhiksha, said, ” We will be close to a 30,000-strong organisation by this year-end. However, developing employable skills is one area of concern. For this, we run our own skil schools where we recruit and train people and provide employable skills for the retail industry in general and our organisation in particular.

“What we need to look at is the contribution of the organised retail to the industry. Today it is a mere 3-5% and the opportunity to grow is immense, Kanth said.

Hiring intentions or the NEO of employers in the retail sector during the last 10 quarters have increased steadily from +21% in the third quarter of 2005 to +42% in the third quarter this fiscal.

According to the study, employers across all the seven industry sectors in India have reported positive hiring intentions for the 10 consecutive quarters. The strongest outlook is observed among employers in the services sector (+54%) and the weakest in the manufacturing sector (+40%).

“Interestingly, fluctuations in hiring trends in different sectors have started to stabilise and are at 40% and above,” Basu said.

Year-over-year comparisons according to the study reveal increases in the NEO in six industrial sectors. While manufacturing sector is the only one recording a decline by 1 per centage point in hiring activities, the transportation & utilities industry sector reports the largest increase at 17 per centage points.