Searching for a turnaround push, Tata Steel Europe may cut 1250 jobs

It had in November decided to cut 3,000 jobs across its European business.

Tata Steel Europe is planning to cut 1,250 jobs as it faces "challenging circumstances" and "needs to urgently improve profitability", Chief Executive Officer Henrik Adam said in an internal memo seen by Reuters on Tuesday.

"Our financial situation is serious and there's an urgent priority to improve the performance of the business and our cash position," Adams said in the memo.

Besides the job cuts, which would be less than half of what the company had announced last year, Tata Steel said it will not replace employees who have retired or left the company.

It had in November decided to cut 3,000 jobs across its European business.

The company has outlined details of a transformation programme and continues to be in talks with its European works council to minimise job losses, according to the memo.

"Although it's good news that we are able to minimise the impact on our current employees, we need to progress with speed to secure the future for the business," Adam said.

In response to the Tata Steel's plans, Britain's Unite union has called 

https://unitetheunion.org/news-events/news/2020/march/urgent-talks-call-as-tata-steel-job-losses-across-europe-on-cards for "urgent talks" with the company to discuss the implication on the company's UK operations, including the Port Talbot site in South Wales.

Trailer company says it will stop hiring nicotine users in 21 US states

U-Haul International employs 30,000 people across the US and Canada.

U-Haul International has announced plans to stop interviewing and hiring nicotine users, including people who use e-cigarettes and vaping products.

The well-known truck and trailer rental company approved the nicotine-free policy set to go into effect February 1 in more than 20 states where the company operates, the Arizona Republic reported Wednesday.

Those states include Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia and Washington.

People hired before the policy goes into effect won't be affected, company officials said. U-Haul International employs around 4,000 people in Arizona, where the company is based, and 30,000 across the US and Canada, officials said.

In each of the 21 states, it is legal not to hire people who use nicotine, company officials said. Employers in 17 states are also legally allowed to test for nicotine, officials said.

U-Haul International has not indicted if it would conduct tests, officials said. The company expects the nicotine-free hiring policy would help create a more healthy corporate culture, officials said. The new policy will focus on the health of team members and employees, while also decreasing healthcare costs, company officials said.

India's decentralised renewables workforce to double by 2022-23: Report

This comes at a time when India is facing a 45-year high unemployment rate.

Business Standard : India’s decentralised renewable energy (DRE) sector--which generates, stores and distributes renewable energy locally--could employ nearly 100,000 more people by 2022-23, according to a new report.

While most of these jobs are expected to be long-term, women constitute only a quarter of the workforce in this sector. With this addition, the DRE sector’s workforce could double in size--from about 95,000 jobs in 2017-18 to 190,000 jobs by 2022-23--if the mini-grid market “continues to expand at a rapid pace”.

The number of informal jobs in the DRE sector is expected to remain stable at around 210,000, noted the first Powering Jobs Census 2019: The Energy Access Workforce report by Power For All, a coalition campaigning to scale DRE, released on July 15, 2019.

This comes at a time when India is facing a 45-year high unemployment rate, according to the Periodic Labour Force Survey released by the National Sample Survey Office in May 2019. Of nearly 61 million jobs created in India over 22 years post-liberalisation of the economy in 1991, 92% were informal jobs, according to an IndiaSpend analysis.

The report captures DRE employment data for 2017-18 to establish a baseline that explores the link between Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7 (access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all) and SDG 8 (inclusive and sustainable economic growth, employment, and decent work for all).

The report covers India, Kenya and Nigeria: The DRE sector is estimated to add more than 260,000 direct, formal jobs in these countries by 2022-23. In India, 36 companies in the sector were surveyed.

Renewable appliance firms are the “job engine”

End-user product providers--that is, companies that sell pico solar appliances (that use small amount of power for gadgets such as calculators, cameras and mobile phones), solar home systems, and other small, off-grid appliances directly to customers--are the “job engine of the sector”, the report said, adding that they are expected to add 86,000 direct, formal jobs nationwide by 2022-23.

These companies alone accounted for 97% of 95,000 DRE jobs created in 2017-18. In addition, they added 470,000 “productive-use jobs”--created by the DRE end users as a result of newly-acquired or enhanced electricity access--in the same year.

HSBC plans to axe hundreds of investment bank jobs to help cut cost

Cull of more than 500 jobs could begin in weeks, people say.

HSBC Holdings Plc is considering eliminating hundreds of investment banking jobs as Chief Executive Officer John Flint pressures the lender’s top managers to cut costs, according to people familiar with the plan.

At least 500 jobs could go within global banking and markets, although formal numbers have not been communicated, said the people who asked not to be named. Greg Guyett, who recently took sole control of global banking, will be pushing through cuts in his part of the business, one person said.

The reductions are expected to begin at the unit as soon as mid-June and will take place over the year, the people said. They are part of wider job reductions across the lender, and mark the latest stage of HSBC’s “Project Oak” revamp.

“Business and function lines constantly re-evaluate their needs to ensure they have the right roles in the right locations,” HSBC said in a statement.

Keep Reading : Business Standard

Shares in the bank jumped to an intraday high after the news and were trading down 0.1% at 2:10 p.m. in London.

Flint has made “positive jaws” -- banking jargon for keeping the top line growing faster than expenses -- a key focus as he seeks to put his stamp on the bank, which makes the bulk of its revenue in Asia. The CEO berated his most senior managers in March for missing cost targets, people with knowledge of the matter have said.

The unit known as GBM houses the lender’s corporate finance and trading operations, employing about 24,000 of the division’s total workforce of 48,500 which includes contractors and other support staff.

Project Oak

Project Oak’s job reductions should help the company’s goal of achieving positive jaws, as the cost incurred can be accounted for as a one-off item rather than counting toward HSBC’s overall cost base, one of the people said. That’s a deliberate strategy to encourage aggressive reductions, as managers may have resisted making necessary cuts in the past to avoid the hit to their own budgets from costs such as severance payments, the person said.

HSBC missed a full-year target to achieve an increase in revenues that outpaced the increase in costs. That stepped up the pressure on Flint, who attacked “incompetence” at a Hong Kong event in March attended by about 400 managers, people with knowledge of the event said earlier this year. The bank met its positive jaws target in first-quarter numbers published this month.

61% office goers want commuting time counted as office hours: Survey

The survey suggested that businesses that do not have a flexible workspace policy risk losing out on top talent.

Business Standard : A majority of office-goers in India want commuting time to be included in their working hours, according to IWG Global Workspace survey.

Over 80 per cent of the companies in India are introducing flexible working to help attract and retain employees, it said.

IWG, one of the world's leading flexible workspace provider, Wednesday released a study based on insights of over 15,000 professionals from different industries in more than 80 countries.

The survey was independently managed by MindMetre Research and the sample is highly representative of senior managers and owners in businesses across the globe, spanning a variety of industries.

"61 per cent office-goers from India believe that official working hours should include time spent on their journey to and from work. Also, 41% said commuting to/ from work is the part of the working day which they like the least," IWG said in a statement.

Globally, nearly half (42 per cent) of the professionals think that official working hours should include time spent on their journey, as it does not constitute free time in their day.

"Last year our Global Workspace Survey talked about reaching a tipping point, but what we are seeing now is that flexible working is considered by many to be the new norm for any business that is serious about productivity, agility and winning the war for top talent," IWG CEO and Founder Mark Dixon said.

"Indeed, half of all our respondents claim to work outside their main office location for at least half of the week," he said.

The survey suggested that businesses that do not have a flexible workspace policy risk losing out on top talent.

Around 71 per cent of businesses globally and 81 per cent in India think that offering flexible working enables them to expand their talent pool, the survey showed.

In fact, many (77 per cent globally and 81 per cent in India) businesses are adapting to improve talent retention by introducing flexible working.

From an employee's point of view, one third of people globally said flexible working is so important, they would prioritise it over having a more prestigious role (32 per cent globally and 49 per cent in India).

"Perhaps this is due to an increasing focus on work/life balance:flexible working is seen to improve this balance by 78 per cent globally and 86 per cent in India," the statement said.

Interim Budget falls short on a key promise made by Modi; creating jobs

With more than 90% of the labor force employed in the informal economy, the government has struggled to produce reliable data to get an accurate read on the level of joblessness in India

Interim Budget 2019 : India’s budget provided plenty of giveaways to farmers and middle-class voters, but was short on detail on one of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s key promises: creating jobs.

The issue has become a politically sensitive one ahead of elections due by May, with the government accused of deliberately withholding the most recent labor report because of the possible bad news it presents. A local newspaper published leaked details of the report a day before the budget, showing the unemployment rate reached a four-decade high of 6.1 per cent in the year to June 2018.

Modi swept to power in May 2014 with the biggest electoral mandate in three decades after promising to create 10 million jobs each year. Finance Minister Piyush Goyal said in his budget speech last week that 20 million “employment opportunities” were added in two years. Yet no official labor survey has been published since 2016, when the unemployment rate was reported at 5 per cent.

ALSO READ: Interim Budget brings relief for taxpayers as compliance burden decreases

Much of the budget focused on consumer stimulus -- such as the $10.6 billion-plan to pay cash to farmers -- with few specific measures to help boost businesses to create opportunities for about 12 million young people who enter the job market each year.

“Some jobs will be created,” said Arun Kumar, a professor of economics at the Institute of Social Sciences in New Delhi, referring to the populist programs announced in the budget. “However, you need a much bigger push. It’s nothing compared to what’s needed.”

With more than 90 per cent of the labor force employed in the informal economy, the government has struggled to produce reliable data to get an accurate read on the level of joblessness in India.
For now, the government has rejected the findings of the leaked jobs data, saying they aren’t final. There’s lots of evidence to show jobs have been created in the last four years, Rajiv Kumar, vice chairman of the government think-tank NITI Aayog, said last week.
Business Standard

Cloud computing to help generate over 1 mn jobs in India by 2022: Report

The rapid growth of cloud-native services and increasing acceptance of cloud-based environments.

With cloud computing becoming more prevalent in companies, both large and small, the global requirement for professionals is steadily on the rise and over a million jobs in the sector will be created in the country by 2022, according to a report.

Companies are currently investing 4.5 times the rate of traditional IT spending in cloud infrastructure, and it is expected to grow even faster by 2020, according to a report by ed-tech platform for executives Great Learning.

The report is based on conversations with senior cloud experts, recruiting managers as well as subject matter experts and is supplemented by data from high-quality industry research reports.

In the coming years, however, nearly all IT expenditure will be on a private, public or hybrid cloud environment, making all IT roles, in some sense, cloud computing roles, it added.

The Indian cloud computing market, currently at $2.2 billion, is expected to grow to USD 4 billion by 2020 with an annual growth rate of more than 30 per cent, it added.

The rapid growth of cloud-native services and increasing acceptance of cloud-based environments as secure coupled with a need to save costs are driving companies away from traditional data centres (DCs) to cloud environments.

In India, IT giants are now building solutions on the cloud rather than on physical infrastructure due to increased flexibility, scalability and speed.

"A quick search on popular job boards shows hundreds of open jobs in various roles that require cloud computing expertise. An estimated 1 million new jobs will be created in India by the year 2022 as more companies adopt cloud technology," it added.

According to the report there are about 18 million cloud computing jobs worldwide at the moment with a salary of over USD 1,00,000 per annum.

The salary for a leading cloud professional can go as high as USD 2,80,000 per annum, it indicated.

In India, the salary for an entry level (0-2 years of experience) cloud professional is around Rs 5-7 lakhs which is significantly greater than that of a traditional IT engineer, who would earn about Rs 3-5 lakhs.

The salary for an associate working in cloud with less than 5 years of experience can range from Rs 12-19 lakhs and a mid-level manager can easily command upwards of Rs 20 lakhs.

Cloud architects and other specialists with 10-15 years of experience can earn over Rs 30 lakhs, it added.

More than 1.7 million cloud jobs worldwide remained open as technical recruiters face difficulties in filling out job vacancies in cloud.

Business Standard