Temp work now looks attractive to jobless MBAs

Temp work now looks attractive to jobless MBAs

Jobless freshers seem to be taking the adage ‘something is better than nothing’ seriously. As getting jobs with big-branded organisations seems a far-fetched reality, several engineering and management graduates are making a beeline towards temporary jobs. In these, candidates are on the payrolls of staffing firms and then get deployed to perform various roles in companies for anywhere between eight and 24 months. Computer engineer Gaurav Kumar (name changed), after hunting for a job for 10 months, is now employed with a staffing firm in Bangalore, and carries out assignments for a IT major. Earning Rs11,000 per month, the 24-year-old says, “I don’t mind continuing like this. If opportunities for permanent jobs come my way, I will take them up.” As per estimates by recruitment consultants, almost a third of the nearly 9 lakh MBAs, engineers and MCAs who passed out in 2011 are jobless. Basudev Mukherjee, executive director, Indian Staffinf Federation, says freshers are increasingly reaching out to temporary staffing firms. “They see temp jobs as a smart way of moving ahead instead of waiting for a renowned firm to approach them,” says Rituparna Chakraborty, senior vice-president and co-founder, TeamLease Services, a temporary staffing firm in Bangalore. A few years ago temp jobs mainly saw unskilled labour. But now, with temp firms also offering social security measures like gratuity and mediclaim, the sector is seeing MBAs, engineers, etc thronging for roles in HR, accounts, finance, programming for about a year or two. These jobs pay them anywhere between Rs9,000 and Rs15,000 per month.