Telcos ramp up hiring of temporary staff

India's telecom companies are hiring more temporary employees, especially at entry and junior-level posts, as demands of dynamic and evolving technologies increase and recessionary trends persist, staffing experts said.

This has led to the share of temp employees rising to 20%-22% currently from 12%-15% a decade ago, and could touch 40% by FY28, they added.

“The technology in telecom (2G, 3G, 4G, and now 5G) is evolving rapidly. So, companies are finding it more efficient to hire employees on contract rather than reskilling their entire workforce frequently,” RP Yadav, chairman and managing director, Genius Consultants, a Kolkata-based staffing firm said.

While reskilling and upskilling is an exercise undertaken by most companies, it is time intensive. So, while a part of the permanent workforce is upskilled and reskilled to meet the demands of newer technologies and related applications, a chunk of the human resources requirements is also fulfilled using the contract route.

"There are certain job requirements that are tactical for a company, in that the requirement will last until a phase in the business development journey for the company. Contract workers are an efficient way to fill these requirements," said Kartik Narayan, chief executive, staffing, TeamLease Services.

A current example of such a strategy would be hiring technicians to lay out fibre and install fibre to the home (FTTH) connections when a company launches services in a new market. In case of 5G rollouts too, a lot of ground staff is needed to set up cell sites, for example, and most of them can be let go after the initial set-up.