The world wide recession has taught a huge number of Indians, a large number of lessons.  Some of these lessons have been translated into action or the other, and this has in fact, newer forms of employment in the service sector.  Many middle-class families have also managed to stay safe and have had their heads above water, due to some of their own methods of changing with the times.

From each of these lessons, it becomes easy to understand how to cope with a present crisis, move on, and keep adapting to something, keep the best of family interests in mind.  By learning from real world success stories, let us learn how to stay unaffected by any storm.

The first lesson is that in the worst of times, it is wise to stay put wherever you are and not venture out to a new job, even if the salary is good, or even if the nature of job is very good.  In difficult times, all those who are in good jobs, with confirmed salaries, in existing, dividend paying companies with a good salary, should never venture to join a new project, even if the project belongs to a well known group.

This is exactly what happened to many who relocated to Cuddalore, a small town in the North of Tamil Nadu.  This small town, saw a spurt of new chemical industries.  At that point in time, each of the new projects seemed to have great potential.  However, in one major industry, that of Penicillin G, a bulk drug, the Government of India's policy was unpredictable, and allowed cheap Chinese imports to come in.  

The result -- two major investments, each with an investment of two hundred rupees, became BIFR cases within six years, and both the organizations that belonged to the JK and SPIC groups, simply closed down.  Those who resigned their jobs from well-known organizations of the Ajay Piramal group, were left in deep distress at the time of the major recession, post 9/11.

The second major lesson is that those who are employable across industries, like for instance, with qualifications in mechanical engineering and experience in mechanical maintenance, can and should take up jobs in the boom sectors.  For example, a couple of young men with such a background quit one of the aforesaid organizations and happily got jobs in the utilities department with a five star hotel chain of the Tata group, that was relatively unaffected by the recession.  Hotels always attract foreigners, and of late, in cities like Chennai and Bangalore, medical tourism is the name of the game.  

Foreigners get their operations done at a fraction of the cost of what it would cost them in USA or UK or any European country, stay on in the best of five star hotels in the two cities, and go sight seeing.  They tend to stay on for quite some time.  The hotels also get huge money from the seminar/ conference/ international conference industry, that keeps on booming.

The third lesson is to even liquidate an existing loan, with the sale of another asset, in times of uncertainty.  I know of two families that sold their flats for huge amounts in Mumbai, and moved on to Chennai, where they invested the sale proceeds in two independent houses in good localities, and also managed the huge expenses of one family member who was declared to have blood cancer..

So, it is important to play safe in such circumstances.  The smart boys from Maharashtra and even Andhra Pradesh, in 2002, who were unable to find jobs in the core sectors, migrated to Chennai, took up BPO jobs available aplenty in the city, did some job-oriented IT course, , like Java and Dot net, and when the economy returned back to good shape, jumped to good jobs in the IT sector.  Those with some SAP training also managed the transition to good jobs, pretty well.

The fourth lesson is to stay put in a confirmed job in a tier 2 city in hard times, and if the woman is already in a good job, more so.  This is because the cost of relocating is quite huge, and employers do not pay everything.

The fifth lesson is to pick up skills that will fetch some job.  For instance, I knew two young people on the verge of being sent out because of "re-structuring" in the supply chain management department in 2003, in a firm at Chennai.  The two of them borrowed around one hundred thousand from relatives and quickly did a SAP course in the same subject.  They happily moved on to Mumbai, where they got very good jobs.  They managed to leave behind their wives and children under the care of their in-laws.  When the economy rebounded a short while later, they got back to Chennai, with huge salaries as Team leaders in another organization.  Two others took up the NET examination, cleared it and became teachers in the MBA colleges. 

The sixth lesson is to try to ensure that some money always gets saved, through some savings, however say that may be, preferably, in recurring deposits.  It ought to be remembered that recurring deposits are always safe and do not attract income tax deduction at source.  One has to part with small amounts that can be made available, through some cost cutting.  This always happens, anyway, during a recession.

At the macro level, it ought to be remembered that the service sector in India, will really survive and grow from strength to strength.  For example, even if a family has one single engineer, he would start earning something like twenty thousand rupees within just three years. Farmers with even the bare minimum holdings, come out of the very poor category and enter the middle middle-class category.  In States like Kerala, where at least one person is employed in the Gulf in every second family, the cumulative figures of such families need new hospitals, schools, IT training companies, colleges, cinema theaters in huge shopping malls, a huge number of buses, trains, cars and what have you.  And then would come the coaching classes and the beauty parlors.  

Such is the population explosion in India.  So any future employment --- the real growth -- will come from employment in the service sector.  This is the most important lesson, and the future generation needs to gear up to get appropriately trained.

It is but essential that we understand the imperative need to develop skills in more than one area and are also able to save some money, by reducing expenses.  For instance, with a fifteen year span, it is wise to have a corpus of at least fifty hundred thousand at that point in time, for basic amenities of food and medical care, assuming that all debt are cleared, marriages of sons and daughters are over, and education of children is also over, and of course, one has a house that he or she can call her own.  


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