JC in India

There are around 1.4 billion people living in India. Technically I think it is still officially the second most populous country in the world, but it may now have overtaken China, or be very close to doing so. Which basically means if you need a job doing, it is not hard to find someone to do it. There are plenty of people to soak up all the tasks needed to keep the world’s largest democracy in full flow.

From selling vegetables off horse drawn carts, to high flying executives championing industry, India has the full range.

Like anywhere else in the world though there are of course the normal wheels of business turning. White collar workers filling the offices around the country all suited and booted (well, less actually fully suited up as the dress code is often less formal here due to the heat in the main). The most notable difference that has struck me is the gender bias though. There is a distinct sparsity of women at senior levels in the organisations that I have encountered to date. This is quite a contrast to my former employer in the UK who is I believe particularly good at instilling diversity in the senior ranks, but here in India it is the polar opposite. Largely this due to the underlying culture, where the norm historically was for women to stay home and look after the household, generally meaning less women were focused on being career orientated. That said though, there are plenty of women in the workforce and the offices I have worked in and been to. It just seems less of them rise the career ladder versus the men.

I am now well used to starting business emails with ‘Gents,…’ because it is rare to have a woman on the distribution list. I have been in many meetings with large numbers of people and have consciously realised it is basically a room full of blokes.

I don’t really know the reason or the answer, but it does take some adjusting to. I have written previously about cultural differences of relationships, with a general lack of mixing of the genders in younger years. It is much more usual for men to meet men and interact with mostly men in social settings when younger and that seemingly transposes also to the business environment. 

That is not to say there are no senior women in the business, but just much less than natural diversity would expect. I personally think that it is a shame and a part of India that does not sit well with me. But it is not something I can change or have any influence over; it is just something that is different and will continue to be so while I am here. Maybe in the future things will change.

Outside the office environment though is where the masses of people are more evident – each pursuing his or her own means for existence. There is no material social welfare here in India. There are schemes linked to insurance and require payments to be made (similar to National Insurance in the UK), but there seems to be little support as a result of using these if needed. If you do not work, you do not get much, if anything. So you are pretty much out on your own if you do not have a job. Simple as that.

In December 2022 the official unemployment rate in India was a little over 8%, although I am not sure the criteria used to define employment. There seem to be a lot of self-employed people here doing a wide range of support jobs, so whether they are recorded in this quantum I do not know.

As a result, the cost of labour here is very cheap. That goes hand in hand with the cost of living too. There are certain things which can be expensive if you seek good quality – my apartment being the best example for me personally. But aside from that it is entirely possible to live a very cheap life here in India, if careful with groceries and living ‘locally’, avoiding the unnecessary luxuries. That has to be the case really given the low income levels of some of the support workers. 

This low cost of labour is why there is so much Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) activity undertaken here. Back-end IT work, call centre call handlers and the like is big business here in India. Gurgaon, a region just to the southwest of Delhi is the hub of this activity in Northern India, with multinational companies having major set ups here to avail of this cheaper labour. My first business visits to India over 10 years ago now were in fact due to that, with me outsourcing my airlines customer call handling to a BPO company in Gurgaon. I remember doing the tour around various companies having them presenting their offerings and negotiating rates that would not have been imaginable in the UK. But I soon discovered there was a real quality v cost argument. I cannot pretend that the Indian centre could give the same level of service as one back in the UK. That is not to say it was bad service, it was often very professional and pleasant and great in terms of amiability. Unfortunately though, sometimes the baseline knowledge of the customers environment was lacking. Often a customer would call to change a booking between Birmingham and Malaga, and you just knew the agent did not know where either Birmingham or Malaga were and was just following a script. It was more the inability to really relate to a customer that proved the challenge. The western name adopted to answer the phone, being given away as a ruse by the accent that went with it.

There are a lot of jobs created here though, and the support available to those that want to pay for it is readily available. The availability of cheap resource has in itself created an industry of support for the ‘haves’ by the ‘have nots’. I live on the top floor of a building with 3 other apartments in it. The person who lives on the first floor is a car dealer from what I can understand, and he has a couple of cars parked out front. Every morning around 9am a guy rocks up on a motorcycle and proceeds to spend the morning cleaning those cars. Every day. I will not try and guess what he is paid for his duties, but you can assume it is not much. If the car owner has even a modest income, then it is not likely to put much of a dent in his lifestyle to pay this chap to come and keep his cars clean.

In truth it is a win-win for both parties. The car owner has clean cars constantly, and he probably barely notices the expenditure, and the car cleaner has a job he would not have had otherwise. He may not be getting much money, but at least he is getting something. And the something is better than the nothing, because that is the alternative.

I often think about the exposure and vulnerability that this lifestyle places on people here though. If your job was cleaning cars, and you lost that job there are likely not many other options available to you unless you can find something similar. No guarantees of security to fall back on. It is for that reason that once someone has such a job you can be sure they will do what they can to keep it. Which in turn can lead to good service provision. Usually…

You do not have to look hard to see people out there being innovative in making a living. There are regularly guys seen pushing carts up and down the streets around my residential area of Vasant Vihar, calling out to alert people to their ‘stall’ moving by. The potato salesman was outside when I set off for work the other day, and regularly I see other fruit and veg carts doing the rounds.

There is some chap nearby who wanders around with a completely diverse mix of random household goods on his cart. I very rarely see much being sold, so I can only assume the overall riches received from this are pretty low. But it is something, which again is better than nothing.

That is a tough existence. Most of the year here the temperatures are very high, so making a living outdoors would not be much fun. The rest of the year the air quality is so bad it is hazardous to be outside. Again, not the best environment for an outdoor job.

There is also a real home delivery industry here, with a variety of online sites selling rapid delivery of not only the usual take away food, but also groceries and the like. I used one for grocery shopping for the first time yesterday while I was working from home for the day. I needed a few bits so thought would give it a try. Literally 15 mins after hitting order, a guy turned up with two bags of simple shopping. It was cheaper than the local shop too, so maybe I will just adopt this seemingly prolific delivery culture too…

Construction work is another large employer here, with many hands making light work on many a job. There are a few new buildings going up around the neighbourhood, and they are swarming with labourers.

It is certainly true to say that things can get done quickly here in India, by simply throwing resource at it. The average salary in India is listed as 387,500 Rupees, which converts to around £3,875 pounds. And that is the average. You can be sure the labourers, cart pushers, building security guards will all be on a lot less than this.

Hence the ability here to ‘throw resource at it’, without denting some people’s bank accounts too much. There is no shortage of people who are happy to be that resource too. Once you know a good local fixer who is well connected, it is very easy to get anything sorted. For the ‘haves’ life can be quite comfortable and being waited upon for all your needs can be relatively inexpensive. Which in turn is a self-fulfilling prophesy, as this support industry springs up to support those that want it. If you park the quantum of the support workers income, the whole thing is a win-win environment for a country with such a population, no welfare scheme of note, and a need to provide incomes for the masses.

Of course, the large population and the need to provide support services does present a large degree of competition. Just down the road from my apartment is a central hub for the auto rickshaws, and there are multitudes of them. Rarely do you see many being busy, and at low rates for the journeys the daily income cannot be high. I have come back late at night and seen some of these drivers asleep on the back seat, legs draped out over the road. It is not an easy lifestyle.

I often wonder how the support levels feel about those of us with more. Vikas – my day guard – studiously checks my shopping every time I come back as much as he can crane his neck to see. His job is copied and pasted all over this neighbourhood with most buildings here having guards sitting around all day out front keeping their eyes on the goings on.

When I pop to the shop to get some basic provisions there is every chance I may have spent more on non-essential luxuries (can’t beat salt and vinegar crisps!), than he may earn in that day. As much as he smiles and is as friendly as can be for someone who has a grasp of the English language that extends to basic pleasantries only, I am sure that underneath he sees me as being a squanderer. As much as I am pleasant and friendly with him and believe him to be a nice guy (and have tipped him healthily on occasion), I still feel guilty carrying something unnecessary past him up to the apartment. On the few occasions he has been into my apartment itself, I wonder what he really thinks. Do I need those nicer plates, just because the original set wasn’t to my taste? Do I need to have that sound bar in the corner playing music? It does ground you into a different level of perspective at times.

I am writing this from the terrace of my apartment, and the Prime Ministers aircraft has just overflown me on approach to land at the airport. He is presiding over such a vast and diverse nation. It is a land of widely varying societies, and subcultures. Of castes. Of haves and have nots. Yes, it has its failings, and yes things can be difficult at times, but it does work. 

Despite the challenges you do not have to look far to see happy faces. The value attributed to experience, to friendships and to family is significant here. Moreso than probably in many other countries. It is not actually money that makes you truly happy in the end.