Vijay Kumar is not a Satyam employee, yet the collapse of the IT company has disturbed this 36-year-old professional. Kumar is one of the many IT professionals who have been recently laid off and are desperately looking out for jobs. He fears the already strained placement situation will only get worse once the market gets flooded with resumes of Satyam employees.

“There are 53,000 employees with the company. Even if 10 per cent of them decide to quit, it’s going to make our chances of landing a job very bleak,” says Kumar who had left his job in Pune in September and joined a Hyderabad-based firm for a Rs 15,000 joining bonus and a 100 per cent salary hike, only to be told in mid-November that his services had been terminated. Now back in Pune, the former project manager is busy scouting around for a job while trying to maintain his family of four and a home loan from his savings.

“We can already see a difference,” says Dipak Chavan, who has just gone through a similar harrowing experience. Last year when the postgraduate in physics from the University of Pune got a job offer from a Hyderabad -based IT firm that promised him a 200 per cent salary hike, he gave up his 12-year old job at Jayshree Electronics Pvt. Ltd in Pune. In August, Chavan joined his new job at Tanla Solutions Limited in as manager (R&D) ; in November, the HR head told him his services had been terminated. “It was all over in five minutes flat,” reminisces Chavan , who has now rejoined Jayshree, but on a 30 per cent salary cut. “The Satyam collapse will just add to the market woes. I know because I have colleagues there who have been sending feelers all over the place and are even willing to change industries.”

Ganesh Natrajan, president of NASSCOM, says there is no need to panic, as there should be no reason for Satyam employees to flood the market. “If a situation arises when thousands of people have to be relocated, we will support that too but I am not expecting such a situation to arise,” he said.

Partha Iyengar, vice-president (research) Gartner, however, says, “There will be some impact on the entry-level job market. In addition to the current number of 4,000-odd students with offers from Satyam — who don’t know if they have a job or not—- there is a relatively large number of further entry-level hires that will now not be made due to Satyam’s absence on campuses,” said Iyengar.

Deepak Shikharpur, president Computer Society of India adds that since Satyam is among the top 10 companies with its employees demanding a premium, it is unlikely that they would threaten those already jobless.