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UP employment exchanges take the private route

Tap private cos for recruitment; manage 26,000 jobs in past yr alone; offers skill upgrade courses to suit service sector.

With limited jobs in public sector companies, employment exchanges in Uttar Pradesh are looking at the private sector, especially the service sector, to provide jobs to youth in the state. In the last year itself, various exchanges in the state helped in the placement of as many as 26,000 youth in various verticals of the service sector, with 1,500 being recruited in Lucknow alone. Public sector recruitment in Lucknow last year were just 82.

Companies that have sought help from the exchanges for placements include many Fortune 500 companies like Pepsico, Aegis, Reliance group, HR solutions provider Adecco group, SBI, Bharti Walmart and others, such as, Pizza Hut, KFC, Clarks? Hotel, Godrej, Bajaj group, Aircel, ING Vysya, HDFC Finance, Shoppers Stop, FMCG major ITC, logistics chain DHL, Tikona Digital, Onicra, Shriram Pistons and Uniworld Solutions.

Talking to FE, DK Verma, career counsellor motivator at the directorate of employment, UP, said, ?At a time when government sector jobs are limited or are being outsourced to contractors, we had to look for new ways to justify our existence and be of help in getting placements for youngsters. Since the goodwill of the employment exchanges is still intact, we tried to tap the private sector and offered to help them find the right people at a lesser cost. While there were some misgivings in the minds of the private sector initially, that bridge has since been crossed. And it is really heartening for us to tell you that many companies are now coming back to us for fresh recruitment drives whenever they need people,? he says.

In fact, some companies like leading BPO company Aegis have a standing requirement of 500 ?good people? every month and this is where the exchanges are feeling the pinch. ?The biggest problem is that there is a gaping mismatch between employable people and employers? requirements. With growth in the service sector in UP expected to go up to almost 20-25% in the next five years, there is no dearth of jobs in the state. The only problem is a lack of right candidates. To bridge that gap, we have started skill upgrade courses. Our 80-hour training session provides candidates the basic requirements that most companies look for, such as C++ in computers,? says PK Pundir, regional employment officer, Lucknow division.

The Lucknow exchange has also started a new course in personality development to cater to the growing demands of all verticals of the service sector. ?Be it call centres or food chains, the retail and insurance sector or the hotel industry, general personality development is the basic requirement of all these companies, as most candidates are required to interact with the public. And this is where we found candidates lacking. We have started a training module in which we get specialised people to teach them the art of communication, etiquette, body posture, eye contact, etc,? says Pundir.

?We also get feedback from the HR departments in case of rejections and work on the rejected candidates to get them placements later,? says Vijay Pratap Singh, training and placement officer at the Lucknow Exchange.

He adds that with about 26,000 placements in the private sector, the exchanges have also helped the state exchequer save about R31.2 crore, which candidates would have got as allowance otherwise.

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First published on: 27-05-2012 at 02:13 IST
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