Umanng Mathur founder of Eye Media Network has launched Shortjobs in July 2020, with a vision to resolve the gap between people who lost their jobs in this pandemic and the companies who are willing to hire employees on a contract basis. Eye Media Network is an advertising and digital marketing agency based in Mumbai. He has studied Masters in Marketing Management, BA Hons Integrated Promotional Media, and HND Advertising and Media Communication from Solent University, UK. Having a major experience in Direct Marketing Advertising Communication, he decided to launch Shortjobs that will tackle the job crisis resulting from Covid 19. His main aim is to stimulate flexible work opportunities for people who can make a decision based on their interests and time availability and have an organized working culture in India.
- How has Technology become a part of our daily lives?
Technology has become the backbone of our lives and is inevitable. Ever since the internet boom, technology has evolved and harnessed various tools and processes to make human life more simpler. Today one can not imagine a life without mobile phones and computers as it has become the most common form of communication. It has shrunk the geographical boundary and brought people closer. Technology has helped us in many facets of our lives such as in communication, education, in healthcare and in improving our overall productivity. Post pandemic when it was virtually impossible for people to meet each other or organizations to function normally, we relied heavily on various communication technologies and started to get back to normal. AI and ML have become integral parts of the business and various automation tools have become handy. All in all I can say that in today’s time we cannot imagine a life without the use of technology.
- How has the Pandemic affected the Jobs of People?
The corporate world has seen an unprecedented year in 2020 which was filled with a lot of uncertainty and a lot of volatility in the recruitment sector. A lot of organizations have tried to cope up with this pressure by re strategizing their hiring and opted for downsizing on a large scale. This has resulted in lakhs of job losses and changed the employment dynamics completely. Indian economy witnessed one of its biggest layoff drives in the last decade or so. Not only entry level candidates but even the experienced ones were also laid off. This has forced veterans and experts to come out of their comfort zone and look for other avenues to survive. Organizations have become lean and started to look out for an agile workforce which can adapt to technology and can handle multiple tasks at a time. Those who were affected realized that they also need to evolve and up skill themselves. Based on the findings by one of the prominent research entities, the unemployment rate went up to 24% in the month of April 2020 which was a huge eye opener for the Indian economy.
- How has the hiring increased once companies have shifted to Remote Working?
Working remotely was not a common practice for Indian companies before the pandemic. Companies are traditionally believed to have higher locus of control on the scheme of things which was not possible in remote working culture. Covid 19 changed this dynamic completely. The job location became an absolute criteria as organizations have realized that even after working remotely they can clock higher outcomes. The rise of advanced communication technologies has fueled this in a big way. This has opened the gates for companies to invite talent from any corner of the world and vice versa. Traditionally the jobs which were concentrated for Tier 1 cities have started to accept talented people from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities as well. As per the recent Naukri Job Speak Index for the month of December 2020, the hiring has declined in metro cities such as Mumbai (-25%) and Delhi (-18) while the hiring has picked up in Tier 11 cities such as Chandigarh (+8%) and Jaipur (+2). This indicated a drastic shift in the hiring pattern post the remote working culture.
- Can you tell us more about the growth of Freelancing during the pandemic?
One of the most defining outcomes of the pandemic was the rise of the freelance economy in India and the fact that people have started to accept that freelancing can be a full time profession as well. A report by ASSOCHEM has predicted that the gig economy in India will be approx. USD 455 billion by the end of 2023. Freelancing offered a lot of positives to employees such as flexibility in work, better control over their career, simultaneous work experience, alternative income and independence. One interesting statistics suggest that India’s freelancing workforce is the second largest in the world with 15 million people contributing to almost 40% of the world’s freelancing workforce. This number is surely going to increase going forward.
- What are some of the Hiring Trends to watch out for in 2021?
My hunch is that hiring will evolve significantly in 2021. Few key trends that are ought to occur in hiring will be as below:
- The rise of freelancing and Gig workforce hiring
- Skill based hiring
- Hiring from remote locations will increase
- Data driven and AI based hiring will be a need of an hour
- The focus will be on internal talent upskilling and internal mobility
- Sector such as IT, healthcare, e-commerce, logistics, and e-learning will become crowd pullers and will see a surge in hiring