Josh Talks Raises $1.5M to Grow Job Training Vertical
Josh Talks, which provides vernacular content, career guidance and skilling has raised Rs 10.7 crore ($1.5M) in pre-Series A round led by New York-based Media Development Investment Fund (MDIF), valuing the startup at over Rs 100 crore. The company plans to focus on product development for its Josh Skills vertical in the ongoing financial year, which includes building technology and introducing more courses for users. Creating the complete ground of the e-learning platform, Supriya Paul, the Co-founder of Josh Talks said that the company aims to educate the low-income households in India and prepare them for better jobs through Josh Skills. The company owns two additional properties – Josh Kosh, an inclusive career-guidance platform, and Josh Skills, a platform that equips low-income students and job seekers in India with the training and tools they need to get a job.
Accenture Opens Innovation Hub in Hyderabad
Accenture recently opened a new innovation hub in Hyderabad, where clients can co-innovate with the company by ideating, rapidly prototyping and then scaling products and services for the digital economy. One of the highlights of this innovation hub is that it houses Accenture’s first Nano Lab in the Asia-Pacific region, offering clients a window into the latest breakthroughs in applied research from Accenture Labs worldwide. The Nano Lab showcases use for a range of advanced technologies including Artificial Intelligence (AI), extended reality and security, and allows clients to connect with researchers located in Accenture Labs globally through immersive sessions and workshops. The hub, part of the company’s global innovation network, will house 2,000 employees with expertise across various areas and industries. Spread over 300,000 square feet, this is the company’s second innovation hub in India after Bengaluru.
As Coronavirus Outbreak Escalates, Business Travel Takes a Backseat
As Covid-19 spreads across the world, companies around the world have started to ban or restrict business travel for hundreds of thousands of employees. Having started with China, the curbs have been extended to cover Southeast Asia, the Far East and Europe. Major companies like Microsoft, TATA Consultancy Services, HSBC, Hitachi and Chevron have asked their employees to work remotely as a precaution against the novel coronavirus. Nestle and L’Oréal have asked all of its employees not to travel internationally for business until the end of March. Videoconferencing and working from home are being encouraged. The restrictions are also piling pressure on airlines and the broader travel industry, which faces a monthly hit of more than $46 billion from the coronavirus. Employees are also being screened for recent travel to affected countries and non-essential travel in the Asia-Pacific has been either postponed or cancelled.
Capgemini to Hire up to 30,000 Employees in India This Year
Tech major Capgemini, which employs close to 1.15 lakh people in India, is looking to hire up to 30,000 employees in the country this year, in a bid to derive more value from its presence here. Currently, the Indian workforce constitutes for over half of its global employees base. The hiring will be evenly split between freshers and experienced professionals, or lateral hires, revealed the company’s country chief executive Ashwin Yardi. At present, it is focusing efforts on re-skilling employees for the technologies of the future, he said, adding that this has now become a continuous process. Yardi revealed that the tech firm is conducting special programs for the mid-level managers having 10-15 years of experience who would be placed as project managers or architects. Also, the French company is also not investing in startups unlike some peers, but working jointly with over 150 of them on critical technologies.
Uber Supports and Partners with India’s First-Ever LGBTQ+ Job Fair in Bengaluru
Uber is partnering with Pride Circle’s first-ever job fair in India, Reimagining Inclusion for Social Equity (RISE) to help the LGBTQI+ community to connect people from the community to companies who are diverse and inclusive. Through the job fair, the limelight will be on the glaring issue of workplace discrimination based on one’s identity and will promote inclusion and diversity at the workplace. Uber will change all in-app routes in Bengaluru with rainbow colours for the entire day on July 12. As part of the partnership with rising, Uber will have an attractive experience booth at the venue giving people an opportunity to share their views on what ‘Equal opportunity means to them.’ The job fair will also be seeing various panel discussions about diversity and inclusion, mental health, gender identity and expression, benefits and policies for people in the LGBTQ+ community.
IT Freshers Suffering from High Stress
According to a study conducted by a talent lifecycle-management firm, SCIKEY, about 42 percent of freshers in the information technology (IT) sector are suffering from high stress. While over a quarter of the employees working in the IT sector are highly stressed, what’s interesting is that more than half of these are employees having merely 0-4 years of work experience. What’s also striking is that not all the stress is work-related. More than 79 percent of the participants, who claim to be stressed, say they are witnessing various family matters and issues. Uneasy workplace (73%) and constant exposure to technology (60%) were other reasons for stress in this age group. The report is based on responses from 10,117 participants from 10 Indian states in the age group of 22 and 47 workings in domains including software developers, IT infrastructure, technology support, project managers, architects, support engineers, business development, digital marketing, UI/ UX engineers, and other IT-centric roles.
Women at Mastercard Make 92.2% of Men’s Salary
Mastercard, the American multinational financial services company, disclosed its gender pay gap for the first time, saying that its female employees worldwide make 7.8% less than the men. While the Company claims to have achieved parity on an adjusted basis — by assessing same-level employees in the same role. Still, the median pay for female employees globally is 92.2% of the median pay for male employees. Such a gap is indicative of the fact that women are under-represented in the highest-paying roles or positions. Mastercard is not the only company to make its gender pay gap public. Earlier this year, Citigroup had also disclosed that its women staff earned 27 percent less than the men in its workforce. The company said it is working toward parity.
