Job market looking up!?

I just got back after a splendid holiday-feeling great and rejuvenated! And as I browsed through the local newspapers in the past fortnight, boy- it is really encouraging! Suddenly -the job market seems to have perked up with a vengeance :-)!

Here are some of the stories I noticed in the media just in the last 10days!!:

Top level hiring inching up. "Compensation is not really the big issue for mission-critical roles. Organisations are now able to better align payouts with the value and skills that a professional brings to the table."

Oil& Gas companies step up hiring ahead of auctions of a record 70 exploration blocks under the eighth round of New Exploration Licensing Policy (Nelp-VIII) and fourth round of Coal-Bed Methane Policy (CBM-IV). Together, exploration and production companies will need to hire 25,000-30,000 people over the next four years!!

Ford to hire 1000, Animation &gaming jobs to double, HCL to hire 2k, ...BASF to hire 5000!! ( a little more attention revealed that the same is going to happen in the next 11 years :-)!!)

Realty companies are back-trying to raise Rs 14000 crores in IPOs( 3 billion USD) Atleast 7 companies have rushed to file in the red herring prospectus -as they look to launch new projects and speed up execution of existing ones to cash in on a pickup in home demand. It is any body's guess that the hurry was perhaps due to the half yearly accounting deadline of Sept 30th!

(I have included some parts in italics-my apprehension?? I do hope I am proved wrong!)

Well, ...its a little tough to imagine things could have suddenly changed over a fortnight, right? May be it has got to do with the festive mood- Ramzan, Dussera -and Diwali coming up shortly-maybe the media does have a reason to buoy up the 'feel good' factor!! After all, it is a no brainer that this season is a pretty vital one for most marketeers-and it is essential for a customer to loosen the grip on the purse?

One thing however, that does give hope- is that most often, such surfeit of news become self-fulfilling!! People tend to get carried away-and who knows, it might even trigger off roving eyes of the employees -looking for greener pastures-almost after a hiatus of a year and a half?

Elsewhere it is interesting to note that Infosys Technologies announcement of planning a compensation review exercise for "need-based promotion" starting October 1, signalling a new employee welfare initiative.

Like they say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. I will like to believe a lot of the above, when companies actually 'reinstate salaries' to the previous level-even if it is restricted to a few! Or if the 'variable pay' components are merged back.

Well-let me confess, I shall be the last one to complain if companies restarted hiring:)!! Or even if they decided to start reviewing all those 'positions that went on hold' after weeks of screening and filtering? Maybe, if they actually announced the launch of all the projects under wrap!! Anyway, I guess it will take another 10 days to be sure. Would it be a Diwali of austerity again? The firecrackers will tell...

Psst-Gautam Ghosh, the appointment pages supplement is back -in today's issues of "The Hindu" and the "Times of India"!!