Recruiters say without naming names that the largest companies have not only put a freeze on recruitment but are also shedding employees in small numbers. “No company will tell you openly but it is common knowledge that some companies plan to lay off the bottom 25 per cent based on the performance criterion,” says Shastri. Companies are getting inventive in laying off employees. Some are firing employees for ethics ¿ such as fudged resumes or work experience records or even cooked-up expense statements, all of which were overlooked during the boom times.

The other bane of the placement consultancy business currently is the dipping attrition rate, or the rate at which companies lose employees. In the high-growth phase that lasted until last year, companies which could keep attrition rates below 20 per cent had bragging rights. In some business process outsourcing (call centre) firms, attrition was so high that companies turned over their entire staff in three years or so. That scenario has completely reversed, much to the woe of Shastri and other recruiters.

Companies are freezing raises and perks. Even then, most workers in the software industry are too scared to contemplate a job move. They are unwilling to even circulate their resumes. “Employees are sticky and for once outsourcing companies are seeing stability in their workforce,” says Shastri.

For the moment, PVShastri Associates’ 10-person operation will continue to run. But all the talk of retrenchment, lay-offs and pink slips is unsettling. “If there is no recruitment, that means the industry is not growing and that is bad news,” says Shastri, who has seen the best of times in the nearly two decades of running his company.

... contd.