In wake of the huge private and government investments lined up in the infrastructure projects in the economy, the pace of employment generation in the sector has risen significantly as evident from a share of 12 per cent in the total employment opportunities generated in the first three months of the fiscal, according to an ASSOCHAM Placement Pattern (APP) Study.

The APP Study “Job trends in infrastructure sector” has also revealed that the infrastructure sector comprising Aviation, Construction, Energy, Core infrastructure and Metals & Mining, have jointly contributed a significant share of 12 per cent to the job vacancies posted in first quarter of this fiscal.

“Removing the infrastructure bottlenecks is seen as a good business opportunity by the private players. The sector is emerging as a potential employment generator with its share set to leap further”, said ASSOCHAM President, Mr. Sajjan Jindal.

The Study comprised of a sample size of total 1,05,638 jobs generated, spreading over 55 cities categorized in three Tiers according to the size, population and other demographic characteristics. The infrastructure sector created a massive 12580 job opportunities out of the total sample size between April-June’08. The sample was based on the vacancies posted in the national and regional dailies, journals and job portals like “timesjobs.com” and “naukri.com”.

The construction segment had the maximum share of 24.32 per cent in the total employment generation in the infrastructure sector. The number of job openings in the segment remained buoyant on account of a rise in the construction activities of different projects running under progress.

With metal prices going high in the recent times, the mining activities have gone up at an increased pace. The segment had the second largest share in the infrastructure sector job openings with a total of 3047 newly created jobs.

Energy, one of the key drivers of the infrastructure sector, had a share of 18.80 per cent with the number of job openings in the segment totalling to 2365. The scope of a healthy increase in the contribution of the segment towards the total job opportunities in the overall infrastructure sector remains robust as the sector seems to be one of the thrust areas for India Inc with huge investments lined up in the near future.

Despite being under tremendous pressure of the boiling fuel prices reflected in the losses of domestic airlines, the aviation sector had a share of 17.89 per cent in the infrastructure sector with 2251 number of job openings.

Core infrastructure has been the least contributing segment in terms of the number of jobs generated in the quarter. The increased cost of finance might have taken its toll on the segment with 1857 newly created jobs and a share of 14.76 percent.

Cornering more than two-third share in the job creation, Tier I cities generated a total of 8506 job openings in the infrastructure sector. Among the Tier I cities, the financial capital of India, Mumbai generated the maximum employment opportunities in the sector with a share of 29.31 per cent in the total number of job openings in the Tier I cities. Delhi and Chennai followed next at second and third spot with share of 15.53 per cent and 12.90 per cent respectively.

Similarly among the 14 sample Tier II cities analyzed by the APP, only two cities viz, Pune and Ahmedabad captured the biggest chunk out of the total job opportunities generated in the Tier II cities with a share of 37.28 per cent and 22.22 per cent respectively. Vadodra (9.03 per cent), Surat (6.18 per cent) and Chandigarh (3.50 per cent) occupied the third, fourth and fifth position respectively.

Among the Tier III cities, Ankleshwar (13.01 per cent), Bhopal (8.70 per cent) and Guwahati (7.41 per cent) acquired the first three positions with their collective share of 29.11 per cent in the total job openings in Tier III cities. Amongst the other cities from a sample of 34 Tier III cities; Cochin (6.98 per cent), Indore (4.91 per cent), Coimabatore (4.82 per cent), Aurangabad (4.48 per cent), Gwalior (4.13 per cent), Meerut (4.05 per cent) and Raipur (3.79 per cent) found their places in the top ten employment generating Tier III cities in the infrastructure sector.

On the concentration front, of the sample 14 Tier II cities the top three cities accounted for almost three fourth of the new job creations. Tier III cities fared slightly better in terms of equitable proportion of job creation across the 34 cities with top five cities accounting for 41 per cent of the newly generated employment opportunities in the infrastructure sector. However, Tier I cities had a fairly equitable job creation scenario with top three cities accounting for 57.74 per cent and the rest four cornering 42.26 percent of the new openings in the sector.

- News Agencies