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He frequently bought expensive sarees for his wife, toys for his eight-month-old son and cricket gear for himself, maxing out on his two credit cards. In December, he planned to take a home loan and buy an apartment in the Kanakapura suburbs of Bangalore. Last week on Tuesday, Jadhav was called in by the vice-president of his company, handed a month’s salary and sacked on the spot.
“I signed the letter, took my cheque and walked out without speaking a single word. It was all over in five minutes,” said Jadhav, reliving the moment. The vice-president told him that he was being terminated due to “bad market conditions”.
A nightmare called the “pink slip”, familiar to most Indian workers as something that happens only in the West, has arrived in Bangalore. In this city, one of the world’s hottest outsourcing centres, companies have begun laying off employees and putting a freeze on recruitment. Even campus hiring, a process by which most fresh recruits break into the industry, is at a low. Bangalore is hurting.
Jadhav said he never expected the job situation in the software industry to come to this. In the past years in Bangalore, professionals like Jadhav — personable, articulate and with good spoken English — have been besieged by jobs. While the outsourcing industry has grown at averages of 30 to 35 per cent in recent years, the boom has cascaded into thousands of new jobs for college graduates with sound technical and communication skills.
To be sure, workers took advantage of the explosion by hopping companies, demanding and getting handsome pay jumps. Jadhav has worked in the past for the business process outsourcing firm FirstRing and Dell Financial Services.
But the recent, serial bust-ups in Wall Street and a recessionary US economy has badly hit Indian outsourcing firms. With American companies — their biggest customers — facing an economic dip, outsourcing companies are cutting back and, in turn, choking the job market.
“The scene is really bad and I now realise what my brothers in the United States must be going through,” says Jadhav. Outsourcing to low-cost countries like India has been a controversial cost-saving measure adopted by Western companies, and has been the source of much heart-burn amongst workers because of the lay-offs. During the recent US election campaign, president-elect Barack Obama declared himself against the practice.
None of this makes any sense to Jadhav’s father, an official with a government-owned bank, who reacted, “I cannot believe this can happen”. Jadhav says his father has worked for the bank for 29 years. He expects to continue working there for the next four before retiring.
Despite being pink-slipped, Jadhav himself holds no grudges against his employer of one-and-half years, Dulles, Virigina-based Everest Software, which makes products for small and medium businesses. “If Yahoo, IBM and Microsoft , all big companies with huge cash reserves can lay off, why not smaller companies which lead a month-to-month existence?” asks Jadhav pragmatically.
In the last few weeks, most of his colleagues in the company have been fired, too. “I was one of the last to be shown the door because I was one of the better performers,” he says.
The slowdown in India’s outsourcing industry, the mainstay of Bangalore’s economy, is showing up in unexpected ways. The city’s restaurants and drinking lounges are reporting a 30 to 50 per cent dip in revenues. A publicly-listed real estate firm has slashed prices of apartments. Others have introduced low-end options. Rush-hour commuters are even talking of de-clogging in the roads during peak times as outsourcing workers prefer taking the company bus or riding a two-wheeler to driving their cars.
In the last week, Jadhav has been frantically surfing the internet and scouring the newspapers in search of a job. He has dispatched his resume to a dozen companies unsolicited. He has fired it off to several placement consultants. He has attended three interviews so far but he has had no luck.
Jadhav may not yet have a job offer but he has a plan. “At the next interview, I am going to say to the company, give me a job, don’t give me a salary. Pay me only after I prove myself. I’m ready to go to that level.”
Jadhav’s wife Debadrita quit her job as a content editor at Yahoo when she became pregnant last year. The couple now has an eight-month old son. Jadhav has crossed the overdraft limit on his two credit cards and has run himself into a Rs-70,000 credit card debt. As he describes, “I am quite a spendthrift”. If he does not land a job in the next one month, Jadhav cannot pay his credit card dues and the card company will “come knocking to my door.”
Jadhav’s credit card debt has not found favour with his father whom he describes as his opposite because he abhors loans. “If my father has ten rupees in his pocket, he might consider spending one rupee. But I will spend two rupees if I have one rupee in my pocket,” he describes. Jadhav concedes he will have to change his squandering habits for the sake of his wife and son. His wife might soon start job scouting too.
It has only been a week since he has lost his job and Jadhav says he can manage for the next couple of weeks on his last pay cheque. If he does not find himself work within a month, Jadhav says he will go to his dad and say “zindabad” to his bank. He says how he expects his father to respond: “He will call me shameless!”
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Most of Jadhav's fears are his imagination run riot. My grand children work in similar jobs. They have not lost jobs. Their parents are always their forts. No Mom or Dad think of the money of their children as their own. All children are safe and will receive all the moral boost that will do good. Money comes , money goes. Mr. young Jadhav is naive still. Family relationships are still strong in India. Centuries of history to it. As Bill Gates of Microsoft says that it might takes 4 years for economies to run towards growth in full swing, Jadhav can hunt around and become a skilled hunter. He will land a good job at any rate sooner than he thinks. Good luck. Miss. Saritha Rai's story is lucid. Mmade reading the life of soft professionals a enlightening experience.
The story by Saritha Rai about Sandeep Jadhav. A soft ware professional.Recession recession and recession. Why recession, How recession and where recession. These questions too must be well researched and told the public. In he recent past George soros a financial wizard caused the melt down of markets in many Asian countries starting with S.Korea in the north to Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia. Engdhal's report underlines that George Soros was not alone and there is a coterie of rich financiers behing that melt down. Some financial Mafia. To say that recession is upon us all on a sudden is unreasonable.A great oak tree is felled by one stroke of the axe. We know who axed it the oak. The woodsmen.Similarly we must be able to know who are the authors of this recession. Can not subsume climate change, or some such gradual thing the cause.Unless we identify the authors of the recession, the clever men, this time around, we will never be able to take right corrective steps. Robert Gates(Bill Gates of Microsoft) opined that it will take atleast 4 years to come out of this present melt down.One great trouble with foreign direct investment (FDI) is its ability to fly by night. So, steps must be taken to make sure that FDI is properly regulated to give us boost but not the bust. May I request Mr. Anand Rao of FE and Saritha Rai to respond to my request ? Thanks
Dont worry buddies...Its a lesson...Try ur best..wait
I work in the IT industry too. It pays handsomely...but not forever! Most of the kids that were laid off today were too young when the same damned thing happened in 1999. I had just graduated with an engineering degree to find out that the recession had hit...and I was born and brought up in Bangalore.In contrast, most kids of today have truly indulged in a lifestyle that they probably couldn't afford thanks to easy credit - personal loans, credit cards, what not!Come on kids, learn to live within your means, not beyond it.
millions getting laid off...this one no big deal, however I feel jadhav got paid more than what he should be. Extravagency is not his fault, its all the salary structure that puls one into greedy limits and extravagency! He could have definitely saved a ton for his future and towards the family with that kind of a salary...so now what????
This gentleman has been earning a whopping 5lakh per annum which is 5 times what a normal man earns. Still he is bankrupt in few months? Unbeliavable! He must be really stupid to lead a carelessly lavish life. Even if he saved for tax purpose over 5 years, he should have 5lakhs in hand to sustain for at least 2-3 years without job. The pink slip practice is prevalent where the salary pack is heavy and hence justifiably Jhadav has no complaint against his bosses as he had bargained a good deal.
so many people are getting laid off, why only this story is getting highlighted?. Westerners especially America is using up india's intelligence by dumping non value adding jobs here, This created a fake economic growth and techies were on cloud nine. India let all Engineers do these crap job for multinationals and went years behind in technology, infrastructure, defence, agriculture and everything that is needed to make our country strong and self reliant. Youngsters lured by the attractive compensation and life style MNC software jobs had to offer fell prey to it. But cant blame them because if it had not been for these companies, unemployment would have been horrific which would have resulted in devastating consequences. This serious threat of global meltdown and lay offs by MNCs seem to take India back to the 80's where unemployment was order of the day. India should have invested in Industrialisation and projects for our country and employed our youngsters on those jobs.
Stretch untill your bed is an old saying from our forefathers. God gave the intelligent a thing called Software to escape the onslaught of Reservation, but they made merry with night life ,pizzas and what not? Now it is back to Square one. God is Great.
India is predominantly is an agriculture country and about 75-80% population depend on agriculture sector for its livelihood and neglecting the agriculture sector would have its negative impact on prices of essential of coomdities and over exploitation of other resources and wating the reosurces on luxory items and manipulated economy scenario was doomed to be failed and it failed. The prices of houses added to another foe as only a meagre number of people were investing into the realty stock whereas 95% people could not even think of having their own houses and only few persons were employed at a high salary whereas majority did not. Such imbalances were counter productive which were completely ignored by the governments and rising consumerism which played a devatic role is also to be blamed. Right time for India that it should invest in cottage industry, agriculture sector, and stop escalting the housing costs etc.