‘Worst of startup layoffs yet to come’

“We have not still seen the worst news from the startup scenario, many companies are still trying to raise money. And the impact of whether they will be successful in that endeavour or not is going to show up. But that said…what is happening with the startups, which have already done layoffs, represents a very small percentage of what their overall workforce has been,” Sekhar Garisa, CEO-APAC, Monster India and Quess Corp, told CNBC-TV18.

He doesn’t think the slowdown in hiring across many startups is a cause of concern as their contribution to the overall job market is still small.

“If you are looking at a cross-section of over a few million jobs, the contribution of startups is not that big and therefore we are not seeing any slowdown from that perspective across the board. We still are very positive in the outlook, we feel that the job scenario is stable,” he said.

Garisa, however, said Monster is “cautiously optimistic” because what is happening from a macroeconomic perspective cannot be ignored.

Explaining what may be happening in the space, he said some startups may be possibly pulling back on their growth initiatives on not getting enough traction.

“We have seen it happen in the past. Startups are now consolidating this, a bit more focused on scalability, sustainability, EBITDA... People have been talking about responsible growth and growth at all costs,” he added.

Monster India’s top official is of the view that there will be a bit of "bad news" over the next quarter or so before it becomes better but from an overall perspective, the hiring continues to be robust.

Talking about Monster India and Quess, he said the two firms’ clients haven’t seen any slowdown in hiring. “We have not seen any of our large customers telling us that they are pulling back on their hiring plan. So, it's very early to say that it's going to be spread across the board."

According to Garisa, the job market will remain the same though there may be some tapering of salary hikes.