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Raja Simhan T.E.

Chennai , Oct. 14

"CHENNAITES are helping Americans find jobs," says Mr Ranjan Sinha, Chairman, Summit HR of the US. May sound simple until you realise that the Chennaites he is referring to are sitting here and assisting people in the US to find jobs there.

Around 40 employees of the Chennai centre of the US-based Echo Outsourcing, which was acquired by Summit HR, are helping information technology professionals, welders, electricians and others find work as contingent and temporary staffing in American firms, he said.

Customers need their labour ``just in time'' and structured to match their needs. That may call for permanent additions to the workforce or temporary or project-based labour or at times they may outsource the work to a third party. In other words, they need flexibility in their labour force.

That's what Summit HR is doing by providing temporary labour force for companies such as Cisco Systems, which needed assemblers and clerical staff, Sun Microsystems for clerical, administration and networking services, and Lockheed Martin which required mechanical engineers and mechanics, Mr Sinha told Business Line.

The Chennai team selects Americans, from a US database available online and from recruitment portals to find suitable candidates. At any given point of time, there are around 1,400 temporary staff, who are on Summit HR pay rolls, working for various companies. However, people keep changing every time, he said.

Summit owns and operates companies globally, which provide HR services including contingent staffing, recruitment process outsourcing and pay rolling. Summit received $25 million funding from Chrys Capital, Adams Streets Partner and Greenwich Capital Venture Corporation. It acquired two companies - Echo Design and LSI Staff - for $5 million, and the balance will be used for more acquisitions, he said.

According to Mr Sinha, customers are becoming more and more comfortable with outsourcing all or part of their HR functions. They want service providers deliver these functions effectively and efficiently. Cost reductions are critical, and temporary staffing offers such a reduction. For instance, a person on a company's permanent rolls may earn $100, but the cost to the company could be double. However, under temporary staffing the cost to the company would be $135 to $150, he said.

Every day, there are over 2 million jobs available on temporary staffing in the US. Further, one million new jobs have been created by staffing companies over the past ten years, he said. Quoting various data, Mr Sinha said the staffing industry generated around $60 billion in revenue in 2003. Out of this, $56 billion came from temporary help services and $6 billion in permanent placement services. Around 90 per cent of the US companies use temporary help services. While specific jobs may last from a few hours to several years, the average tenure of temporary and contract employee ranges from three to five months, he said.

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