By Abhishek Anand: India has overtaken China as the most populous nation in the world, according to a report by the United Nations Population Fund. The rapid population growth has huge economic implications for the nation. At the forefront is the fear that the country will be unable to create employment opportunities for the millions of job seekers.
India Inc claims that it is already expanding and skilled workforce is getting more job opportunities. Sameer Saxena, founder member of Global Association for Corporate Services (GACS) and a corporate honcho, said that record office spaces are being leased in many metropolitan cities. According to GACS, the highest office space leasing was recorded in the year 2019, but after the Covid-19 jolt, the recovery was historic with new records being made in 2022 and 2023 in leasing of properties.
“There’s been a quick recovery, I would say quicker than expected. In 2019, a year before Covid struck, the corporate sector made history in largest number office space leasing. We have crossed the 2019 leasing in year 2022 and this year, it’s likely to break all records,” said Saxena.
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In 2018, the total office space leased by corporate sector was about 49.39 million square feet. It gradually increased to highest at 67.81 mil sq ft in 2019. However, when Covid-19 struck, it went down to 47.2 mil sq ft in 2020, followed by a slow but steady recovery with 50.42 mil sq ft leased in 2021. The sector made new record in 2022 with a whopping 71.65 mil sq ft of space being leased. This year, the pace of leasing of office space is at an all-time high at 59.37 mil sq ft so far, and it is likely to break all records by the end of the year.
An average employee at a corporate office requires a bay of 5×4 sq ft to work. Going by the average figure, 59.37 mn sq ft of space leased would accommodate nearly 29,68,500 employees.
“Return to office of employees is on track as 50-60 per cent of the workforce has resumed office work. This is also leading to a high interest of occupiers in securing space in quality buildings. Bengaluru and Hyderabad are the highest contributors of future demand on the back of strengthening the tech sector,” said Saxena.
‘AI LEADING TO JOB CUTS A HOAX’
Ajit Pandey, another corporate honcho and member of GACS, said the anticipation of artificial intelligence (AI) leading to job cuts turns out to be a hoax.
“AI is actually helping the information technology (IT) and information technology enabled services (ITES) grow faster. It is ensuring that the work is done at a fast pace. Instead to taking away jobs, it is helping employees become more productive and proficient and drawing more business for the sector. The BPOs and KPOs are the ones which are getting more benefit with the AI training,” he said.
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The IT and ITES, MNCs and corporate sector offices require A1 quality office spaces across the metropolitan cities. Bengaluru tops the chart with over 250 m sq ft office space of the sector followed by Delhi-NCR, which is providing about 160 million square feet of office space. Mumbai has about 140 m sq ft followed by Hyderabad’s 120 m sq ft. Pune has 100 m sq ft of A1 grade office space, followed by Chennai with about 100 m sq ft, and Kolkata with below 100 m sq ft of office space this year.
“With new real estate of corporates being constructed at a fast pace especially in Noida, Greater Noida, Faridabad, Gurugram followed by outskirts of Hyderabad and Pune, the number of blue collar jobs are going to rise in coming days and IT, ITES and corporate sector will witness a rise,” said Pandey.
DECENTRALISATION OF CORPORATE OFFICES
As Covid struck, a large skilled workforce started working from home. Many among those went straight to their hometowns in the interiors of the country. While hybrid mode started at many places, some companies provided office spaces for their WFH employees at tier-2 and tier-3 cities like Lucknow, Patna, Chandigarh and other places. This started a new trend of decentralisation of corporate jobs.
“Currently, almost all the corporate jobs are in big cities. But expansion of office spaces in such tier-2 and tier-3 cities are giving first-hand experience to the sector to expand to such areas. The office spaces leased at such cities are not only benefiting the employees, but also creating new blue-collar jobs in such localities. If this continues, it is likely that the corporate sector will expand to tier-2 and 3 cities in the near future, decentralising the job locations,” said Saxena.
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