Urban jobs beckons Rural candidates

Shortage of workforce in service-oriented, labour intensive sectors such as retail marketing construction and primary healthcare is causing holes in industrial fabric; Primary reason being unwillingness of urban youth to take up jobs in these sectors. To tackle this situation, positive efforts are being made in arrangement with rural development ministry where companies like Future Group, McDonalds, Aditya Birla Group, and Adidas etc have come forward to train and hire those who are below poverty line or source already trained staff from government assisted rural placement agencies.

Heading rural-wards

The winds of change are taking the rural youth west ward to fill in the gaps left by their urban counterparts whose preference seemingly lies elsewhere. The companies are doing whatever to train and mould the raw talent in rural areas that is untouched by the urban revolution. They are enthusiastic and have aspirations. And the companies are doing just that; cashing in on their youth and enthusiasm.  

Government extends a helping hand

Majority of rural youths are uneducated and the challenge is in approaching them. And seeing the interest of companies in the rural workforce, government is backing up such initiatives with a special projects scheme under the Swarnajayanti Swarojgar Yojana, relaunched recently as the National Rural Livelihood Mission under which it extends 75 per cent support to companies to build training infrastructure and placement facilities for rural youth. The average salary after absorption would range from 6 to 10 k/pm.

Future Group makes the biggest revolution         

The company that is growing at an exceptionally fast pace needs workforce at an even faster pace, so, they have already started the procedure of hiring. They have their plans in place with training 32,000 youth already that are below poverty line in 19 states over the next 18 months.

They will immediately require 15,000 people to man the additional 200 stores-including 50 in Big Bazaar format and 50 Pantaloons and Home town stores-it’s planning to open in next 12to18 months.

For the purpose, they have already started a learning wing called Future Learning. The idea is to train them for different positions such as customer service, floor operations and good tracking.

Plans of other companies:

In the last 2 years, 2.5 lakh people have been hired by various companies. Adidas, Aditya Birla, Hindustan Unilever, Reliance Telecom, McDonalds have hired staff trained by government assisted rural placement agencies which includes skilled and semi skilled labour.

Even IL & FS and Apparel Export Promotion Council that needs people with manufacturing skills have also entered into agreements with the government and put up training and placement departments for youth.