At a meeting of SKS microfinance, one of the fastest-growing microfinance organisations in the world, in rural Hyderabad in February 2009, Mallamma, 42, is busy seeking a loan of Rs 50,000 for her fish business. This would be her second loan after she took a loan of Rs 10,000 last year. She is in an expansion mode and is planning to employ more persons in her fish business. Or take the case of Geetawati. After the death of her husband, she took a loan of about Rs 10,000 to buy a sewing machine and start her small business. One year down the line, her daughter has started working at a call centre. She now wants to seek another loan to buy more sewing machines and grow her business. She earns Rs 100 a day and employs another person.
Microfinance’s many such economic enterprises are generating significant direct and indirect employment, mostly in the rural areas. According to N. Srinivasan’s State of the Sector Report on Microfinance, over 800 microfinance institutions (MFIs) now operate in India, reaching out to over 140 lakh clients, with an outstanding cumulative small loans of Rs 5,900 crore. Moreover, over the last few years, the Indian microfinance sector has witnessed impressive growth. In 2007-08, MFI grew 40 per cent over previous year. “Microfinace in the Indian context is mostly a rural phenomenon. Hence, most jobs will get created in the rural sector,” says Suresh Gurumani, CEO & MD, SKS Microfinance.
Suresh Gurumani
Moreover, the structure of the rural economy is changing fast. According to Dr Rajesh Shukla, Senior Fellow at the National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER): “The rural economy is increasingly moving from farm to non-farm. There are indications that microfinance along with other rural development initiatives is boosting the enterprises in the rural areas.” That will require both manpower and infrastructure, he adds.
Vijay Mahajan
SKS Microfinance is India’s largest MFI with 1,400 outlets across 18 states employing 14,000 people. “Our employees are from the same social strata as our borrowers,” says Gurumani. In three years, the MFI aims to double its employee strength to feed its expansion plans. It is looking to add 350 branches and around 3,000 employees in 2009-10. Says Vijay Mahajan, social entrepreneur and Chairman of BASIX India, an MFI comprising a nonbanking finance company engaged in credit and an NGO engaged in technical assistance: “The jobs that matter are at the lower rung. Microfinance in India is a big employer as the demand for MFIs is unmet. Microfinance is hiring a large number of people. Boom or bust does not matter to microfinance.”
The sector needs graduates and undergraduates at the field work levels and people with over 2-3 years experience for managerial positions. “Typically, for every client base of a million, over 3,500-4,000 persons are employed,” he says, adding that at entry level, local undergraduates become the target employees.
Small is big
Who’s hiring: Microfinance institutions like Bandhan, BASIX India, NBFCs and mainstream banks
Who’re they hiring: Volumes are at the levels of field staff, back office staff, supervisory roles and mid-level managers
At what salaries: For entry level, the salaries are in the range of Rs 84,000-1 lakh per annum. Campus hires from Tier III business schools get up to Rs 3 lakh p.a. For senior-level openings, salaries could go upwards of Rs 10 lakh p.a. |
The MFIs are also hiring talent at the managerial levels as they need manpower for roles like area managers, audit managers, HR trainers and HR managers. SKS Finance hired 100 MBAs last year from Tier III institutes as area managers. “We will continue to hire these mid-level managers as expansion happens,” Gurumani says.
However, MFIs are facing talent availability pangs. SKS Microfinance is drawing up plans for a training academy to meet its requirement for talent. “MFIs are fast-evolving. One needs to have a different set of values and skills in the sense that one needs to have clear understanding of the target client’s socio-economic background,” says Gurumani.
There’s more. Microcredit is not the sole area offering opportunities. Three new areas are creating jobs at the bottom rung: microinsurance, saving and remittances services, and agricultural and livestock services. “Each of these areas will require a specialised skill-set,” says Mahajan.
So, right now, rural economy— agriculture output has grown for four consecutive years—has come to partially rescue the collapsing urban job market. For once, a rural-urban divide of the positive kind.
