The news of the troubles that Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel are in, is very well known by almost all the people in the country. The two telecom companies are facing massive financial pressure in the wake of the Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) decision passed by the Supreme Court. These two telecom companies have also posted the highest corporate losses in the Indian corporate history because of the pressure of the dues, which is on them. With no reliable solution in sight and the deadline of dues payment drawing in closer, there is no action plan in place for the telecom operators as to from where they are going to account for the money that they have to pay to the DoT. Vodafone Idea has even remarked that it will shut it, operators, if any further relief does not come its way. However, the effect of this new decision is not only on the balance sheet but is slowly penetrating the workforces of these two companies as per a new ET report. With an uncertain future of these two companies, the staff of the telcos is fearful as to what might happen to their jobs.
Vodafone Idea Employees Scraping for Jobs
For example, many sales managers and people holding other positions are approaching hiring firms to look out for alternatives. According to the report on the matter, one of such sales managers in a big telecom operator is ready to settle with a 10-12% hike with a new job, despite being promised a 30% hike on their current job. Also, the co-founder of the specialist staffing company Xpheno, Kamal Karanth said that over the last few weeks around 7,000 profiles from Vodafone Idea and around 5,000 from Bharti Airtel have surfaced in the market. This data was aggregated based on the job portals, social media, and the listing directly sent to the staffing company. As per Karanth, “Overall, around 40% of the people (in the wider telecom sector ecosystem) are looking out.”
Bharti Airtel Employees Also Following on Footsteps
It is worth noting that around 70% of the Vodafone Idea employees are looking for jobs somewhere else, whereas around 30% of Bharti Airtel employees are looking for alternative jobs. On the other hand, the government has said that it wants, all the three private telecom operators to remain in the industry and the structure of three private telcos with a public telco operating in the Indian telecom space is the ideal one. Currently, in the job search which is on for the employees of these telcos, the areas of sales, marketing, accounts, administration and HR make up for the majority of people who are looking to shift places. Also, as per the staffing firm, it might be easier for the people to find jobs in other industries as opposed to people working in niches which are specific to the telecom companies like network integration.
Vodafone Idea chairman, Kumar Mangalam Birla has already said about the situation in the Indian telecom industry thus remarking that the company might have to shut operations if it does not get any relief from the government in paying the Rs 53,000 crore dues which rests on its head on account of license fees, spectrum usage charges, interests and penalties. On the other hand, Bharti Airtel also faces dues of Rs 35,500 crore. The total pressure on the telecom industry is north of Rs 1.47 lakh crore, and this pressure has come after the Supreme Court changed the definition of AGR to include non-core operations as well.
