Job jugglers: The truth about
placement agencies
Young concern
By Peeyush Agnihotri

SURFING high on the present wave of unemployment, placement agencies are here to sell hopes — and make a fast buck, though they would like to say they are rendering a "social service" by providing jobs to the unemployed.

Coming up like bubbles in fermented yogurt, they have chosen big cities as fertile ground for sowing the seeds of hope that push up the graph of their bank balance, contacts and trade — in that order.

Armed with an uncanny ability to extract molasses out of the pulp of unemployed youth, who as it is have nothing but holes in their pockets, their stock in trade is pipedreams in an age of frustration.

With the ranks of the unemployed swelling by leaps and bounds (Punjab has 1.5 million educated unemployed youth as per the latest reports), what better business opportunity can there be than providing job consultancy or placement services.

Buyers’ market

India has essentially been a buyer’s market when it comes to finding a worker and would probably remain so for years to come. Desperate to get a job, an unemployed person runs from pillar to post, wondering how would he ever survive in a world of "Sorry, no vacancy."

"If an educated youth doesn’t get a job he is likely to suffer from various complexities like depression or a feeling of helplessness. He may also become hostile towards society and show withdrawal symptoms," says Dr Jerath, Chairman, Department of Psychology, Panjab University, Chandigarh. "Remember, such youth can easily be motivated into doing anything as they start underrating themselves," he cautions.

It is this desperate segment of society on which placement agents thrive. They appear on the scene to play on the anxieties of youth sans means of livelihood.

Usually operating from small cabins (the ‘business’ requires low investments and has minimal overheads), they dig out a 5" x 10" bill booklet at the mere sight of a probable customer to milk him for "registration fee." A job is promised and 15 to 20 days’ salary is demanded, which they, more often than not, pocket even before the client earns her first salary.

"This trade is flourishing because of a large concentration of small and medium enterprises, which usually recruit through middlemen rather than spending on running a recruitment advertisement. The process of advertising, scrutinising and selection is painstaking. Placement agencies usually maintain a resume bank of candidates. Further, a lot of corporate giants are not visiting university campus, their favourite hunting ground, because of the ongoing recession. This has made even qualified professionals vulnerable to placement agents," says S.K. Bijlani, Adviser, Knowledge Enterprises, Panjab University. "What we need to have is some kind of a system to accredit these placement agencies and have in place a set of policies for them," he adds.

The government policy of employing contractual workers instead of permanent recruitment too has helped such consultants. Government departments, which are already overstaffed and creaking under the weight of salaries and perks, are in no mood to create more "liabilities." They too then seek the help of such agencies for employing workers at various levels.

"If it is a permanent employment, no government department can deviate from the set procedure," says Vishwanath, a Labour Commissioner. He, however, admits that some underhand manipulations might be going on in some private and semi-government organisations about which his office may have no knowledge. "So long as the Contract Labour Act is not flouted and we do not receive a complaint in this regard, we can do little. But this office is always ready to redress the grievances of an exploited worker," he adds.

Most of the agencies also indulge in the unethical practice of employee poaching and then approach the depleted company with a probable replacement. "They make a double kill, which is unscrupulous," says Bijlani.

No wonder, victims of such poaching are aplenty in the city. A woman employee, working in one of Chandigarh’s reputed car service stations, vents her ire against her previous employer and the placement agency which hooked her. "My previous employer usurped my one months’ wages and dues as soon as he came to know that I was switching my job. The agency also has not been able to make him cough up the money due to me," she laments.

Mushroom growth

Gauging the profitability of such a venture, a lot of ‘entrepreneurs’ are jumping onto the bandwagon and placement agencies are coming up like cacti in desert. As a wag put it, "Most of them are fly-by-night operators. Ten mushroom one day and 11 close down the next." Interestingly, every placement agency terms its venture a "social service" and has other business interests as well.

"Not all placement agencies are exploitation machines. There are only a few black sheep, who are disgracing this profession. They are not the correct samples to analyse," says J.S. Tiwana, who heads a placement agency in Sector 22.

Dr Avtar Vashisht, Placement Coordinator, University Business School, however, scoffs at the idea of "social service". "These are essentially business organisations. In fact, the MBA department was also approached by a couple of placement agents during campus interviews. They offered their services which were politely turned down," he says. "Big companies prefer to come to the campus directly rather than recruit through such agents. We have told the students that they are free to interact with job agencies at their own level but the department would have no role to play in the deal."

Employers too have their cup of woes brimming. They complain that recruits coming through job agencies use their office seats as training ground to gain experience. They change jobs like shirts in hot weather and are not loyal.

The idea of providing placement services is welcome, but guidelines are needed to streamline such agencies. These very agencies, minus the sting of crass commercialism and exploitation, can become assets, only if they genuinely serve people along with making their due profit. For good or for bad, till employment remains the topmost need of the youth, job consultants will be in job.