Andrew Bonwick
Vice President of Product Development at Relm Insurance
Madhav Sheth
CEO of Ai+ Smartphone
Stephen Rose
CEO Render Networks

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.”