Hiring Freeze in India 😓
Antarctica research halted, Nasdaq hits 10,000, and US jobs are making a comeback.
Hi 👋, Tanvi here.
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US jobs show signs of comeback 💪
As US reopens, and businesses see some light at the end of the tunnel, jobs are being added to the economy. From retail to restaurants to large cos, people are finding new jobs or starting to go back to old ones.
Here are some highlights from last week’s reported hiring spike according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics:
Restaurants and bars added back nearly 1.4 Million jobs in May.
Construction sector jobs increased by 464,000 in May. The sector is part of the first phase of reopening and the pending projects are resuming work.
Retail added 367,800 jobs, with clothing stores seeing the largest of all.
Due to a sudden surge in demand Walmart hired 300,000 associates.
Factory jobs made a comeback with the industry adding 225,000 jobs. With employees returning from furloughs dental offices added nearly 6,000 jobs.
Laundry services added 183,300 jobs and janitorial services added 68,400 jobs in the last month alone.
Exiting the IT hub👋
Young tech professionals in India’s IT hub Bengaluru are planning to shift to much less populated areas searching for better standards of living at lower costs as work from home is now becoming popular.
Bengaluru’s IT industry began shifting from offices to homes with about 85% of workforce estimated to be WFH currently.
In one of our previous newsletter we also talked about how TCS is planning to have nearly 3/4th of its staff working from home by 2025. After that, several other IT firms have come out with similar plans.
Bengaluru makes up for the largest share of India’s export in software services. The impact of such mass migration will be catastrophic on the city’s economy including real estate, food, bars and restaurants, as well as other services.
Hiring Freeze ✋
According to Naukri Jobs Speak Index for May 2020, India’s job market saw a continuous plunge as hiring activity fell 61% year on year last month. Decline in hiring was led by the travel and hospitality industry at 91%, followed by retail at 87%, automobiles at 76% and banking and financial services at 70%, all figures compared to same time previous year.
The survey further found that more than 50% of job applicants are using the time at hand for self development and career advancement with the top courses in demand being data science and analytics at 22% and digital marketing at 20%.
Corporate India’s plans to hire more staff for the upcoming quarter seem weakened as only 5% of Indian Companies are planning to hire in July-September while 2% expect a decrease in headcount.
On the brighter side the most optimistic hiring outlook is in the mining and construction sector at 12%, as manufacturing sees a boost on the back of making a self-sufficient India.
New Zealand halts research in Antarctica 🛑
In an effort to keep Antarctica virus free, New Zealand told BBC that it was dropping 23 of the 36 projects being conducted on the continent, and that only planned maintenance and essential activities will be allowed.
Earlier in April, Australia scaled back its activity in the 2020-21 season which included decreasing operational capacity and delaying work on major projects.
Antarctica is the only virus free continent in the world and majority of the research activities rely heavily on back and forth transportation of goods as well as people from around the world.
Tweet of the day-
The Nasdaq which represents some of the largest technology companies in the world today hit all time highs, crossing 10,000 mark. While this is baffling many people, analysts believe this is an outcome of technology moving to the center stage of the global economy due to the pandemic.
More and more people are spending digital time, meeting digitally, working from home, shopping online, and buying essentials online. Digital activity is at all time highs and all of this benefits technology companies.
The sad part however? Despite India being a major consumer of services like Google, Microsoft, Twitter and Facebook, most of these companies are trading in the US and Indian investors cannot easily invest in them. It would be nice to participate in the global economic shift that we are helping create.
What else are we Snackin’ 🍿
😷 Virus spread by asymptomatic people could be very rare - Says WHO Official - the WHO is losing all credibility with its flip flopping on statements. First it claimed masks are effective, then it took back its statement, only to again come out with a stance on the effectiveness of masks. Now it's doing the same with asymptomatic carriers. Honestly, we’re just as clueless.
📉 Coronavirus dropped to the 12th most searched topic in May - Google search trends show people have just moved on from looking for information about the virus as search volumes for the keyword dropped in May. It may be an outcome of people having enough information already, or being not as panicked, or perhaps just looking to move on.
😓 Delhi expected to have 5.5 lakh COVID cases by July end, says Manish Sisodia - cases in Delhi are growing at an alarming rate, and the city's Deputy CM is saying that if cases double every 12-13 days like they have in other parts of the world then the cities will soon be out of critical infrastructure to support all those patients.
🔥 Wildfires burn 1,800 acres in Solano County, California - wildfires had wreaked havoc in California as well as Australia in 2019, but were relatively quiet through this year. However summer is back, and Cali has started burning again. The burn seems to be under control thus far.
🌧️ Monsoon might hit Goa in the next 2 days - IMO - Goa might see some relief from all the heat as Monsoon officially is set to hit the state this week. However, the outcome of humidity on transmission of the virus is still unknown. This might be a mixed bag.
Hope you took a thing or two away from today’s edition. 😀
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