Companies' clampdown on office space in 2012 results to 1 lakh fewer white-collar jobs

Indian Companies' clampdown on office space in 2012 results to 1 lakh fewer white-collar jobs - The Economic Times: Around 1 lakh fewer white-collar jobs were created in India's top seven urban centres in 2012 compared with the previous year, if leasing or renting of new office space is considered a proxy for employment generation.

According to real estate consulting firm CBRE, the office space absorption or leasing of new space in these cities has come down from 35 million sq ft in 2011 to about 26 million sq ft in 2012. Data from Cushman & Wakefield, another international real estate consultancy, shows leasing is down from 37 million sq ft to 27 million sq ft while Jones Lang LaSalle says new office occupancy has fallen from 36 million sq ft to 28 million sq ft.

In India, the thumb rule is that a white-collar worker occupies an average space of 70 sq ft. An 8-10 million sq ft reduction in new office space occupancy during the year means 1-1.30 lakh fewer jobs have been created this year compared with 2011. The seven towns and cities covered by these consulting firms in their surveys include the National Capital Region of Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Kolkata and Chennai.

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The State of American Jobs : Who is Getting Them

THE global recession has hit young workers particularly hard. In the mostly rich countries of the OECD, the youth-unemployment rate (the unemployed as a proportion of the labour force aged 15-24) increased by 4.9 percentage points between 2007 and 2009, to 18.4%. By the second quarter of 2010 it had risen to 19.6%. Young people typically struggle to gain employment and are the first to be laid off; in nine countries more than one in four are now jobless. Spain has the highest youth-unemployment rate, at 42%, more than twice the unemployment rate of adults aged 25-54. In New Zealand, Sweden and Luxembourg, the youth-to-adult unemployment ratio is more than four. Germany has the lowest ratio (1.3), largely thanks to its successful apprenticeship system. The OECD warns that recovery will be slow and forecasts that youth unemployment will still be around 20% by the end of 2011.

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