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.

Night shifts, changing work schedule tied to poor mental health: Study

Researchers examined data from seven previously published studies of work schedules and mental health involving a total of 28,438 participants.

People who work night shifts or varied schedules that disrupt their sleep may be more likely to develop depression than individuals with 9-to-5 jobs, a research review suggests.

Researchers examined data from seven previously published studies of work schedules and mental health involving a total of 28,438 participants. Overall, shift workers were 28 percent more likely to experience mental health problems than people with consistent weekday work schedules.

“We know that shift-work alters the circadian rhythm, that is our normal sleep-wake cycle which matches day-night cycle,” said Luciana Torquati, lead author of the study and a researcher at the University of Exeter in the UK.

“This disruption can make people moody and irritable, and lead to social isolation as shift-workers time-off matches family and friend’s work and life commitments,” Torquati said by email.

In particular, the study found, shift workers were 33 per cent more likely to have depression than people who didn’t work nights or irregular schedules.

Shift workers also had a higher chance of developing anxiety, but in this case the difference was too small to rule out the possibility that it was due to chance.

Women appeared particularly vulnerable to the negative mental health effects of shift work, researchers report in the American Journal of Public Health.

Compared to women who worked consistent weekday schedules, women who worked nights or split shifts were 78 per cent more likely to experience adverse mental health outcomes.

Men, however, didn’t appear to have an increased risk of mental health issues when they worked nights or irregular schedules.

Business Standard

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.

American experience suggests that an educated workforce may be overrated

This isn't to belittle the value of higher education; a tight labour market won't reduce the need for degrees for engineers or lawyers.

Business Standard : A tight labor market shows the true value of education – and we’re seeing now that college has been overpriced. For many workers, it’s not worth the time or the money.

In the depths of recession employers added years of experience and additional degrees into hiring requirements – "the barista with a master's degree" – not necessarily because that experience or education was important to do the job, but just because employers had the luxury of being more picky. As the labor market has improved, those requirements have been loosened, presumably without much impact to productivity.

This reality is at odds with the conventional wisdom for the rise in American economic inequality over the past few decades, which says that technology, globalization and education have segmented society into winners and losers depending upon whether someone is a manufacturing worker in the Midwest or a knowledge worker in a coastal city. That conventional wisdom argues that rising inequality has been for structural rather than cyclical reasons.

But as the past few years have shown, we're in an environment where employers are relaxing education requirements and those with the lowest wages (and presumably the least education) are getting the biggest raises. So maybe something has changed and now the link between education and inequality isn't as robust as it used to be, or maybe the theory wasn't right to begin with.

When unemployment was higher, it was plausible to think that more workers needed more education to earn more and to make the economy more productive. But years of very low unemployment have shown a different path, as millions of workers get that higher pay without having to spend years and tens of thousands of dollars on degrees that employers only "require" when they have leverage over workers.

This would be significant because education is one of the big four budget items – along with housing, health care and transportation – that are burdens for workers to pay for, and that policymakers have had difficulty addressing. To the extent the US could spend less on education, we could free up resources to tackle something else.

This isn't to belittle the value of higher education; a tight labor market won't reduce the need for degrees for engineers or lawyers. But as in other areas related to labor markets, maybe we've miscalculated how much is appropriate. Just as the Federal Reserve overestimated the level of the unemployment rate at which inflation becomes a concern, and deficit hawks have underestimated the level of the federal budget that's manageable without leading to higher inflation and interest rates, America may have overestimated how educated its workforce needs to be in order to thrive in a modern economy.

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.

Chasing govt jobs, desperate youth flock coaching hubs year after year

The average number of years spent preparing for competitive exams as reported in this survey is 3 years and 3 months.

GN Shakya is a veteran of Allahabad’s test preparation centres. Like many others, he has been in pursuit of a secure government job for years--in his case, 16 years. During this time, he has amassed five degrees (BA, MA, LLB, B.Ed and M.Ed), and performed odd-jobs, all while studying for the professional examinations. “What work will we do when half our life goes by in finding a job?” he asked when we visited in early April 2019.

Keep Reading : Business Standard

This near-dejection has not caught hold of Deepak Maurya yet. Dressed in a white vest and shorts, the 17-year-old has just completed his 12th grade exams and taken a train to Allahabad, “taiyyari ke liye”--“to prepare”.

Maurya is staying with a relative in a room in one of the many lodges in the neighborhoods around the University of Allahabad. This particular lodge houses about 20 people in a handful of 8ft by 9ft rooms, all of them doing taiyyari--for competitive exams for government jobs.

The test-preparation industry thrives in many parts of India, some of the most prominent in the north being Delhi; Allahabad, which attracts aspirants from eastern Uttar Pradesh; Jaipur and Jodhpur in Rajasthan; as well as smaller cities such as Sikar in the eponymous district in Rajasthan for those who cannot afford to go to big cities such as Jaipur.

Localities such as Vivek Vihar in Jaipur, Katra and Baghada neighbourhoods of Allahabad, and Mukherji Nagar, Rajendra Nagar and Munirka in Delhi, contain concentrations of the educated unemployed--those who constitute India’s historic demographic potential, vying for a shrinking pool of secure employment opportunities.

In near-identical neighbourhoods across these cities, thousands of youngsters spend some of their most productive years preparing for exams that may or may not get them government jobs. Former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, Raghuram Rajan, 

recently referred to 25 million youth applying for 90,000 low-grade jobs in the Indian Railways as evidence that high growth has not produced enough jobs.

In this first of a two-part series, we share the findings of a survey and our interviews with aspirants on how much time and money they spend, and the disadvantages that those from particular socio-economic backgrounds face.

The second part will focus on the meaning these competitors attach to a government job, how they view the work in the private sector and what they think needs to be done to improve India’s employment situation.

92% of jobs created over 22 years post-liberalisation were informal

'It is better to be employed and earn something than remain unemployed', say economists.

Of around 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 of
National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) data for 2011-12, the latest available, released in 2014.

Liberalisation was expected to formalise India’s largely informal agrarian economy, with labour moving from agriculture--the largest employer--to the organised industrial sector. The formal and informal sectors are distinguished based on size of workplace and accompanying government regulations on working hours, hiring and firing norms, rights of association, minimum wages, and other aspects.

Liberalisation aimed to effect a decline in poverty and a rise in living standards through better wages and working conditions as labour moved toward formal jobs. Yet, in 2011-12, 51% of all jobs in the organised sector were informal, data show.

The number of informal sector workers increased from 341.28 million in 1999-2000 to 386.02 million in 2011-12, a 13% increase over 13 years. The number of formal workers increased by 81.5% from 20.46 million to 37.15 million in the same time period.

ALSO READ: Delhi, Bengaluru top list of cities attracting talent in India: Report

However, while formal workers comprised 6% of the total workforce in 1999-2000, this increased to just 9% in 2011-12, showing that the jobs that were created in the formal sector were mainly informal, employing workers with low earnings and with limited or no social protection.

Recent studies have confirmed that this trend has continued. A January 2019 report by Delhi-based economic policy think-tank ICRIER found that while total employment in the organised manufacturing sector had increased 78% to 13.7 million in 15 years to 2015-16, the share of contract workers in total employment had increased from 15.5% to 27.9%, and that of directly hired workers had fallen 10.8 percentage points to 50.4% in the same period, as IndiaSpend reported on March 28, 2019. At 8.3%, the average growth rate of contract employment was five percentage points more than that of regular employment.

Business Standard

Beware of bots: Automation could wipe out almost half of all jobs in 20 yrs

OECD has highlighted a squeeze on the middle classes, future jobs losses from technology and a widespread dissatisfaction in rich countries.

Business Standard : Automation, robots and globalisation are rapidly changing the workplace and governments must act fast and decisively to counter the effects or face a worsening of social and economic tensions, the OECD warned.

Almost half of all jobs could be wiped out or radically altered in the next two decades due to automation, the Paris-based group said in a report on Tuesday. According to OECD Labor Director Stefano Scarpetta, the pace of change will be “startling.”

Safety nets and training systems built up over decades to protect workers are struggling to keep up with the “megatrends” changing the nature of work, the OECD said.

While some workers will benefit as technology opens new markets and increases productivity, young, low-skilled, part-time and gig-economy workers are vulnerable.

“Deep and rapid structural changes are on the horizon, bringing with them major new opportunities but also greater uncertainty among those who are not well equipped to grasp them,” Scarpetta said.

The employment report is the latest OECD warning about risks to governments in advanced economies, which have already manifested themselves in a surge of support for populist political leaders. The organization has highlighted a squeeze on the middle classes, future jobs losses from technology and a widespread dissatisfaction in rich countries.

Changes in employment will hit some workers more than others -- particularly young people with lower levels of education and women who are more likely to be under-employed and working in low paid jobs, the OECD said.

It recommends more training and urges governments to extend protections to workers in the “grey zone,” where a blurring of employment and self-employment often means a lack of rights. The report also warns of “negative ramifications” for social cohesion.

Future of work highlights:

14 percent of jobs could disappear from automation in next 15 to 20 years

32 percent likely to change radically from automation

One in seven workers are self employed, one in nine on temporary contracts

Six out of ten workers lack basic IT skills

Union membership has fallen by almost half in the past three decades

Rural unemployment: When jobs disappear, women are the first to lose out

The 'feminisation of agriculture' is 'not to be celebrated', because farm jobs keep women confined to 'low paid, insecure and oppressive labour relations'.

When Kamal Gangrude looks across at the fields beside her home on the valley floor, she sees swathes of farmland which this year will not be weeded, ploughed or planted. Sold to developers who will build factories and roads or generally put it to non-agricultural use, the loss of this farmland has also meant a loss of vital labouring jobs for the Dalit families of Pimplad, a village in Nashik district of Maharashtra.

Keep Reading : Business Standard

Previously when the monsoon rains arrived, villagers like Gangrude were assured of at least two months of work, earning between Rs 200-250 per day in the nearby rice fields. Now the work available has decreased and is more irregular. “The population is growing but the number of jobs is reducing each year,” Gangrude told IndiaSpend one hot March morning. “Last year some people got just three weeks of work in the whole season. With more machinery around too, the work is done faster.”

Gangrude’s husband is one of the lucky ones. A few years ago, he found a non-farming job as a tailor in the neighbouring town and earned Rs 6,000 last Diwali. But others, especially the village’s women, are often left jobless outside of the monsoon--the two-month period when the only farming work of the year is available. “After the plastic ban, an NGO came to the next village and taught the women how to sew cloth bags, petticoats and such things,” Gangudre said. “I would have liked to learn too but they didn't come here; I don’t know how else you can find this kind of work.”

Kamal Gangrude, 35, with her son in Pimplad village of Maharashtra's northwestern Nashik district. In the backdrop are the fields that used to provide a steady supply of farm jobs, but have now been sold to developers, thus restricting employment options for the village’s poor.

Like the villagers of Pimplad, an increasing number of women in Indian villages are being left with little employment options, except low-paid and erratic farm work. The number of female agricultural labourers in India increased by 24% between 2001 and 2011, even as 7.7 million farmers left farming, indicating how any limited, non-farming opportunities are increasingly being taken up by men, who are perceived as higher-skilled, better educated and more able to migrate for work.

This ‘feminisation of agriculture’ is “not to be celebrated”, said Ishita Mehrotra, assistant professor at Ambedkar University, Delhi, because farm jobs keep women confined to “low paid, insecure and oppressive labour relations”. Agricultural work is indicative of “a patriarchal ideology and a socio-cultural value system” that keeps women bound to the village and consumed with domestic work, while gender roles allow men to migrate for economic and social reasons, she said.

Indians most worried about terrorism, jobs and corruption: Survey

What Worries the World is a monthly online survey of adults aged under 65 in 28 nations, including India, China, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, and the US.

Indians are most worried about terrorism, unemployment, and financial and political corruption, even as at least 73 per cent of the countrymen are optimistic that the nation is headed in the right direction, according to a survey.

The Ipsos’ What Worries the World Global Survey observed that worries notwithstanding, India bucks the global trend of pessimism where 22 countries out of the 28 nations covered feel their country is on the wrong track.

On the other hand, the global list of issues across the 28 markets surveyed is quite different in order, with financial and political corruption and poverty and social inequality tied at the top spot being the prime concerns, followed by unemployment, crime and violence, and healthcare.

“Pulwama terror strike has propelled terrorism to the fore. It was way down in the pecking order in the past waves. Terrorism is bothering Indians the most.” “Likewise, lack of jobs is weighing on the minds of Indians and government needs to take the bull by the horns and actively needs to address job creation and tighten its stranglehold on terrorism,” said Parijat Chakraborty, Service Line Leader, Ipsos Public Affairs, Customer Experience and Corporate Reputation.

China inspires the most confidence about its national direction with at least nine in 10 Chinese citizens saying that their country is moving in the right direction. Saudi Arabia is in second place, followed by India and Malaysia. On the other hand, the top-five nations where citizens are most apprehensive about the course their country is taking were South Africa, France, Spain, Turkey and Belgium.

What Worries the World is a monthly online survey of adults aged under 65 in 28 nations, including India, China, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, and the US.

Business Standard

Mumbai expects 20% salary hike, Bengaluru's IT staff expect least increment

Bengaluru observed that 21 per cent people expect appraisals in the range of up to 10 per cent hike.

Business Standard : Professionals in the financial capital are looking at higher pay hikes of 20 percent or more, while those in Delhi-NCR and Bengaluru expect only about 10 percent increment this year, says a survey.

Professionals in Mumbai, Pune and Chennai are looking for higher pay hikes of above 20 percent, while their counterparts in Delhi-NCR and Bengaluru expect only 0-10 percent hike, says a survey by jobs portal Shine.com conducted across professionals from across industries in Mumbai, Delhi- NCR, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune and Chennai.

It has found that in Mumbai almost 37 percent of those polled are expecting increment of above 20 percent, while in Pune and Chennai it is 36 and 38 percent, respectively. As many as 62 percent of employees in Mumbai are looking for over 20 percent appraisal in the education or training sector, around 56 percent in the auto sector are eyeing the same.

"It is interesting to note the variance in employee expectations across different metro cities and across sectors. While employee sentiments are high across most sectors, it is a given that not all organisations will be able to meet these expectations," said Zairus Master, CEO, Shine.com.

Further, 48 percent in the auto sector and 38 percent in the education/training sector are also looking for over 20 percent hike in Pune. In Bengaluru, professionals are expecting up to 10 percent hikes, while those in Delhi-NCR are on a lower side.

Over 46 percent of e-commerce sector employees in Bengaluru are only expecting an average growth of 11-15 percent. A sector-wise analysis of appraisal expectations reveals that the highest appraisal sentiment is being carried by professionals in the banking, financial services and insurance and BPO/BPO/ITES sectors with over 35 percent expecting over 20 percent hikes.

Sectors including BFSI, IT and BPOs, that already offer high packages to employees are the ones driving these low expectations.

Although Bengaluru has been India’s IT hub for years, its e-commerce sector is expecting lower appraisals as compared to Delhi.

While over 46 percent of e-commerce sector employees in Bengaluru are only expecting an average growth of 11-15 percent, Delhi NCR (Gurgaon) has over 1/3rd professionals expecting a hike of over 20 percent.

Job crisis & note ban: How Bengal is losing its demographic opportunity

The jobs crisis is one of India's leading election issues as the country heads into general elections during the summer of 2019.

The son of farmers for whom farming was no longer viable, Tapan Das left home 20 years ago. Today he is 42, illiterate, earns about Rs 4,000 a month working on construction sites--Rs 3,000 if you deduct the rent he pays for a mud house without electricity and water in an illegal slum.

Sometimes, his wife and he survive on fena bhaat, a watery, boiled rice. His two children get a more nutritious lunch at the local government-run anganwadi or creche here in India’s 7th most populous city. “I and my wife, somehow we manage,” said Das, as he anxiously scanned platform number two at Dhakuria railway station in southern Kolkata, waiting for a labour contractor to offer him a job for the day.

Tapan Das and his wife sometimes survive on watery, boiled rice. When farming failed, the illiterate son of a farmer left home 20 years ago. Today, he earns Rs 4,000 a month as a casual labourer.

There are about 15,000 others like Das on Dhakuria’s packed platform two, mostly men of “working age”--as demographers call them--aged between 20 and 59, and some women older than that. Their common desperation for any kind of work not only represents the drop in opportunities after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced demonetisation in November 2016. It also lays bare the closing of an opportunity for West Bengal and five other states to cash in on India’s demographic dividend, the economic growth that accrues from a large working-age population.

India’s demographic opportunity stretches longer than any other country, from 2005-06 to 2055-56, but falling fertility rates mean the window of opportunity for two states (Kerala and Tamil Nadu) is closed. For West Bengal, Delhi, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Punjab, it is “closing now”--2021 being the outer date--according to a 2018 United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) report.

The jobs crisis is one of India’s leading election issues as the country heads into general elections during the summer of 2019, as IndiaSpend reported on March 26, 2019.

Although West Bengal created most jobs among Indian states over seven years to 2012, according to a 2018 World Bank report, this was not enough to provide livelihoods for millions of unskilled or semi-skilled workers pouring out of the state’s rural areas and from the poorer neighbouring states of Bihar, Jharkhand and Orissa.

Business Standard

Infosys to set up three innovation hubs in Australia; to create 1,200 jobs

As part of its localisation initiatives in Australia, Infosys has already recruited 75 graduates from the country.

Country's second largest IT services firm Infosys on Wednesday said it would open three innovation hubs in Australia and create 1,200 jobs by 2020 in the region as the IT firm looks to increase digital offerings for its clients apart from bridging the digital skill gap in the country.

The company also said that it would absorb graduates from the Australian university to fill around 40 per cent of the 1,200 jobs that it will create in the next two years.

"As a key technology partner of Australian business, we are proud to announce our commitment to accelerating digital skills in the region through the creation of 1,200 skilled jobs, the development of our new innovation hubs and our deepening partnerships with academia,” said Pravin Rao, chief operating officer at Infosys.

As part of its localisation initiatives in Australia, Infosys has already recruited 75 graduates from the country out of which, half of the new hires have completed their induction training and are ready to be inducted into strategic client projects.

“The expansion of our Australian team, together with our planned innovation hubs are very important as we help navigate our clients in their digital journey," said Andrew Groth, senior vice president for Australia and New Zealand at Infosys.

In an earlier interview, Infosys CEO Salil Parekh had told Business Standard that the company would set up innovation hubs in Australia. "In Europe and Australia, we are now evaluating fewer cities. In Australia, we're looking at two and will announce one. Within the next six months, we'll start to announce the non-US ones," Parekh had said.

The Bengaluru-headquartered firm is in the process of setting up four innovation hubs in the United States and has announced to hire 10,000 locals in this key client geography. It recently said that the company had already hired 6,200 Americans since May 2017 as part of this initiative.

Infosys, which reports revenues from Australia under 'rest of the world', witnessed 6.8 per cent sequential growth in constant currency terms in its revenues from this geography during the second quarter of ongoing fiscal. Rest of the world contributed 13.2 per cent of company's total revenues, which stood at $2.92 billion in the September quarter of FY19.

Business Standard

Over 180 mn jobs for women at high risk of being displaced globally: IMF

Jobs are likely to grow in traditionally female-dominated sectors.

As many as 180 million jobs for women are at high risk of being displaced globally due to new technologies like automation, the IMF warned Tuesday.

The global financial institution urged the world leadership to endow women with requisite skills, close gender gap in leadership positions, bridge the digital divide and ease transition for workers.

In a note released during the annual International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank meetings in Bali, the world body said that the figures of massive potential job loss for women is based on its estimate of 30 countries, which includes 28 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries and Cyprus and Singapore.

It also rued that the new technologies could further drive down demand and reduce relative wages for the routine tasks that women perform, lowering returns from labour market participation.

ALSO READ: Jobs: Universal basic problem

The IMF said its results indicate that, given the current state of technology, 10 per cent of the male and female workforce (54 million workers) in 30 countries (28 OECD member countries, Cyprus, and Singapore) is at a high risk (facing higher than 70 per cent likelihood of being automated) of being displaced by technology within the next two decades.

A larger proportion of the female workforce is at high risk for automation than the male workforce (11 per cent versus 9 per cent), with 26 million female jobs potentially at stake in these countries.

Less well-educated and older female workers (aged 40 and older), and those in clerical, service, and sales positions are disproportionately exposed to automation.

"Extrapolating our results, we find that 180 million female jobs are at high risk of being displaced by automation globally," the IMF said. (Business Standard )

In its discussion note, the IMF rued that women are under-represented in sectors anticipating jobs growth, where technological changes can be complementary to human skills.

As such it called for endowing women with the requisite skills, closing the gender gap in leadership positions, bridging the digital divide and easing transition for workers.

Women, it said, appear less endowed with some of the skills needed to thrive in the digital era: they are currently under-represented in sectors anticipating jobs growth, such as engineering and Information and Communications Technology. At the same time, there are some bright spots, it noted... Read More