TeamLease Services

TeamLease Services received an order from the Karnataka High Court on July 2, 2026, disposing of the ₹184.58 crore show cause notice issued by the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation. The court quashed the notice that had alleged irregularities in the administration of the company’s provident fund trust. The EPFO has been directed to consider the company’s reply of March 31, 2026, and conduct an enquiry in accordance with law. The order comes after an interim stay granted on May 20 had paused enforcement. While the disposal clears a major contingent liability, the EPFO retains the right to examine the matter afresh.

Powered by Tijori

July 3 (Reuters) - TeamLease Services Ltd TLSV.NS:

• RECEIVES HIGH COURT ORDER QUASHING EPFO SHOW CAUSE NOTICE

Source text: ID:nBSEb7r6SJ

Further company coverage: TLSV.NS

(([email protected];;))

May 21 (Reuters) - TeamLease Services Ltd TLSV.NS:

• TEAMLEASE SERVICES - STAY ORDER FROM HIGH COURT OF KARNATAKA ON EPFO SHOW CASUE NOTICE

Source text: [ID:]

Further company coverage: TLSV.NS

(([email protected];))

May 20 (Reuters) - TeamLease Services Ltd TLSV.NS:

• CONSOL NET PROFIT 439.1 MILLION RUPEES

• Q4 CONSOL REVENUE FROM OPERATIONS 29.25 BILLION RUPEES

• BUYBACK OF EQUITY SHARES WORTH UP TO 2.38 BILLION RUPEES

• BUYBACK OF EQUITY SHARES AT 1,600 RUPEES/SHARE

Source text: [ID:]

Further company coverage: TLSV.NS

(([email protected];))

May 13 (Reuters) - TeamLease Services Ltd TLSV.NS:

• TEAMLEASE SERVICES LTD - FILES WRIT PETITION WITH HIGH COURT OF KARNATAKA

• TEAMLEASE SERVICES - WRIT PETITION AGAINST EPFO SHOW CAUSE NOTICE FOR CONTRAVENTIONS IN FUND ADMINISTRATION

Source text: ID:nBSE2hZhrM

Further company coverage: TLSV.NS

(([email protected];))

April 28 (Reuters) - TeamLease Services Ltd TLSV.NS:

• TEAMLEASE SERVICES LTD - RECEIVES SHOW CAUSE NOTICE FROM EMPLOYEES’ PROVIDENT FUND ORGANISATION

• TEAMLEASE SERVICES LTD - IMPLICATION AS PER NOTICE IS 1.85 BILLION RUPEES

Source text: ID:nBSE5RWCbL

Further company coverage: TLSV.NS

(([email protected];;))

By Vibhuti Sharma and Dhwani Pandya

MUMBAI, April 14 (Reuters) - At Indian startup Pronto's training hub, women hone their chopping and mopping skills while learning how to send SOS signals if they feel unsafe inside customers' homes. They are set to join India's newest consumer craze: house help for $1 an hour.

Indu Jaiswar, 35, hopes doing household chores in her first job can help fund her son's dream of becoming a doctor. "This is what we've been doing in our own homes for years. Might as well get paid for it," said the mother of two.

In a country with an entrenched culture of outsourcing household work, Indian startups Pronto and Snabbit and listed rival Urban Company URBN.NS are training thousands of domestic helpers. Urban Company estimates India's rapidly growing cleaning services market is worth an estimated $9 billion and spread across 53 million households.

Like Uber drivers, the helpers receive bookings on their apps, directing them to apartments in assigned neighbourhoods within minutes and press a countdown timer in their apps before starting work. The potential annual earnings from working eight hours a day can be as high as $5,000 - a figure that far surpasses India's per capita income of around $3,000.

The companies are betting big, burning millions of dollars to lure busy professionals in cities like New Delhi and Mumbai with under 99 rupee ($1) offerings that have no global parallel. Similar services can cost around $30 an hour in the United States, and around $7 in China.

However, the craze among consumers and workers is tempered by concerns about women's safety in a country with high rates of sexual harassment. Unlike e-commerce couriers who spend just brief moments at doorsteps, housekeepers may spend hours inside private homes, exposing them to greater risks.

Soumya Chauhan, a principal at Dutch e-commerce investor Prosus, which has a stake in Urban Company, said she views worker safety as the fundamental operational challenge to solve.

"The platforms that successfully crack the safety protocols will earn the deepest consumer loyalty and the most sustainable market returns," she said.

SAFETY RISKS

Cognisant of the challenges for a business that mainly employs women, Snabbit and Pronto said they have an in-app SOS button that alerts area supervisors in case of distress, while Pronto also offers self-defence training.

"In the offline world, the rate of abuse for a lot of these domestic workers is super high," said Pronto's 23-year-old CEO Anjali Sardana, adding that her company is trying to comfort its workers by assuring legal and medical support when needed.

Urban Company, which also offers services like plumbing, declined to comment for this story. It has previously said it offers a women-only safety helpline and an SOS app feature.

Shabnam Hashmi, a women's rights activist, said the companies run extensive background checks on workers before onboarding them but should also check customer credentials. Currently users can simply log in on apps to book home help.

"How is it ever possible for these jobs to be safe for women - even with an SOS button? Unless they carry cameras, which is of course impossible, there is no way to know what happens behind that door," she said.

Pronto worker Jaiswar has found her own workaround: she always calls a customer before visiting a home and goes "only if there's a woman present".

RAPID EXPANSION

The companies meanwhile are getting record orders.

Urban Company recorded its highest daily home services bookings of 50,000 in February. Snabbit's have grown to 35,000 orders a day.

Bain Capital-backed Pronto logged a record 22,000 daily bookings in March, up from 2,500 daily orders in October, and raised $25 million in new funding.

Pronto CEO Sardana said she started the business last year after spotting an opportunity to serve three sides: strong demand from customers for reliable maids, workers' need for more stable and safer jobs, and a gap in the market for a scalable service.

"It's possible to build a win-win-win business," she told Reuters.

Fuelling the trend is also India's lack of a do-it-yourself culture, and Indians' love for getting things done cheap.

In Bengaluru, 30-year-old Dhruv, who uses only a first name, said he spent 100 rupees ($1) per hour for Urban Company's service to help unpack his utensils and hang curtains after moving house.

That helped him "save quite a bit of time and effort," but the price does matter: "I wouldn't pay 400 or 500 rupees for it."

Snabbit founder Aayush Agarwal said his service was becoming popular among young couples and singles who want to schedule housekeepers and not hire monthly domestic helpers who are infamous for skipping work.

Pronto is offering some visits for 25 rupees in Facebook ads with taglines like "Maid on Leave? Don't grieve", while an Urban Company three-visit pack costs 66 rupees an hour.

Snabbit ads said a customer booked a helper "just to peel 20 potatoes", while another had lined up a worker to "separate LEGO blocks by colour."

THE CASH BURN

Like many startups in their growth phase, the companies are paying their workers out-of-pocket to make the jobs attractive, but also doling out hefty discounts to reel in customers.

In October to December, Urban Company disclosures show it received 1.61 million home-help orders with each incurring a loss of 381 rupees ($4). The company says its "discounts are moderating" but its order values need to almost double to break even.

"Over a period of time, it is safe to say that it will become an earn-as-you-go model," said Rahul Taneja, partner at Lightspeed, which has backed Snabbit.

At the Pronto centre, where workers get a uniform and are trained to wear polished shoes, posters revealed potential payouts: home helpers can earn $1.60 per hour for 12 hours of work daily in a month, 48% more than what a new customer pays.

At more than $500 a month, that's a big allure for Nisha Chandaliya, 22, who needs to support her ailing mother and has quit a call-centre job that stretched long hours and paid only $180 a month.

"It's exhausting to clean six-seven homes, but I need the stability. I can't afford to go back," she said.

($1 = 93.3010 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Vibhuti Sharma and Dhwani Pandya; Editing by Aditya Kalra and Sonali Paul)

(([email protected];))

Feb 4 (Reuters) - TeamLease Services Ltd TLSV.NS:

• TEAMLEASE SERVICES Q3 CONSOL NET PROFIT 417.2 MILLION RUPEES

• TEAMLEASE SERVICES Q3 CONSOL REVENUE FROM OPERATIONS 30.13 BILLION RUPEES

Further company coverage: TLSV.NS

(([email protected];))

By Munsif Vengattil and Aditya Kalra

BENGALURU, Oct 15 (Reuters) - At a startup office in this Indian city, developers are fine-tuning artificial-intelligence chatbots that talk and message like humans.

The company, LimeChat, has an audacious goal: to make customer-service jobs almost obsolete. It says its generative AI agents enable clients to slash by 80% the number of workers needed to handle 10,000 monthly queries.

"Once you hire a LimeChat agent, you never have to hire again," Nikhil Gupta, its 28-year-old co-founder, told Reuters.

Cheap labor and English proficiency helped make India the world's back office — sometimes at the expense of workers elsewhere. Now, AI-powered systems are subsuming jobs done by headset-wearing graduates in technical support, customer care and data management, sparking a scramble to adapt, a Reuters examination found.

That's driving business for AI startups that help companies slash staffing costs and scale operations — even though many consumers still prefer to deal with a person.

This account of the disruptive changes transforming India's $283 billion IT sector is based on interviews with 30 people, including industry executives, recruiters, workers and current and former government officials. Reuters also visited two AI startups and tested voice and text chatbots that handle increasingly sophisticated customer interactions in human-like ways.

Rather than pump the brakes as the technology threatens jobs built on routine tasks, the country is accelerating, wagering that a let-it-rip approach will create enough new opportunities to absorb those displaced, Reuters found. The outcome of India's gamble carries weight far beyond its borders — a test case for whether embracing AI-driven disruption can elevate a developing economy or render it a cautionary tale.

The global conversational AI market is growing 24% a year and should reach $41 billion by 2030, consultancy Grand View Research estimates.

India — which relies on IT for 7.5% of its GDP — is leaning in. In a February speech, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said "work does not disappear due to technology. Its nature changes and new types of jobs are created."

Not everyone shares Modi's confidence in India's preparedness. Santosh Mehrotra, a former Indian official and visiting professor at the University of Bath's Centre for Development Studies, criticized the government for a lack of urgency in assessing AI's effects on India's young workforce. "There's no gameplan," he said.

Business process management employs 1.65 million workers in call centers, payroll, and data handling in India. Hiring has plummeted due to increased automation and digitalization, despite rising demand for AI coordinators and process analysts, said Neeti Sharma, CEO of staffing firm TeamLease Digital.

Net headcount in the segment, which represents one-fifth of IT output, grew by fewer than 17,000 workers in each of the past two years, down from 130,000 in 2022-2023 and 177,000 in 2021-2022, TeamLease Digital figures show.

Reuters spoke to three current and five former customer-service workers, who described increasing job insecurity and integration of AI, including tools that suggest responses and bots that handle nearly all routine queries autonomously.

Megha S., 32, was earning $10,000 a year at a Bengaluru-based software solutions provider. She said she was laid off last month, just before India's festive season, as the company moved to implement AI tools to review the quality of sales calls.

"I was told I am the first one who has been replaced by AI," said Megha, who spoke on the condition that her full name and former employer not be identified. "I've not told my parents."

Sumita Dawra, a former labor ministry secretary who oversaw an Indian government taskforce on AI's impact on the workforce before retiring in March, said while the technology offered productivity gains that would lead to new jobs, India could consider stronger social security measures, such as unemployment benefits, to help those displaced during the transition.

However, a senior Indian official told Reuters the government believed AI would ultimately have little impact on overall employment. India's IT and labor ministries, and Modi's office, didn't respond to requests for comment.

AUTOMATION GOLD RUSH

Besides AI, factors clouding the outlook for India's IT sector include U.S. tariffs; a proposal by a U.S. lawmaker for a 25% tax on firms using foreign outsourcing services; and President Trump's $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas, which are widely used by tech firms to sponsor Indian workers.

Investment bank Jefferies predicted in September that India's call centers would face a revenue hit of 50% — and around 35% for other back-office functions — from AI adoption over the next five years.

That would spell near-term job losses in India, which accounts for 52% of the global outsourcing market.

"The biggest impact is going to be on young students coming out of college," said Pramod Bhasin, who in the 1990s established India's first call center with 18 employees for GE Capital, where workstations were partitioned by saris strung from the ceiling.

In the longer run, India could transition from "back office" to the world's "AI factory" by capitalizing on demand for AI engineers and automation deployment, said Bhasin, who went on to found IT services firm Genpact.

One beneficiary of that demand is LimeChat, which Reuters visited in August. Gupta, the co-founder, said his developers and engineers have helped automate 5,000 jobs across India. The company's bots handle 70% of customer complaints for its clients, and it plans to achieve 90-95% within a year, he said.

"If you're giving us 100,000 rupees per month, you are automating the job of at least 15 agents," said Gupta. At that price — about $1,130 — the service costs roughly the same as three customer-care staff, he said.

LimeChat's sales soared to $1.5 million in 2024 from $79,000 two years earlier, regulatory disclosures show. Last year, the firm began integrating Microsoft's Azure language models and algorithms in a partnership to launch a new e-commerce chatbot.

Among Gupta's clients is Indian ayurvedic products firm Kapiva, which has deployed a LimeChat bot for customer interactions over WhatsApp.

Keying in a prompt — "What kind of diet should I have to reduce weight?" — yielded an AI meal-plan creator. A follow-up query in English and Hindi about how a slimming juice differs from another item was also answered, with the chatbot eventually sharing links to Kapiva products with a smiling emoji. Kapiva didn't respond to Reuters questions.

LimeChat's rivals include Reliance RELI.NS, the conglomerate chaired by Mukesh Ambani, which acquired Indian startup Haptik in 2019.

Haptik says it offers "AI agents that deliver human-like customer experiences" that cost $120 and can cut support costs by 30%. Revenue skyrocketed to almost $18 million last year from less than $1 million in 2020, disclosures show.

Haptik promoted a webinar in September by posing the question: "What if you had a full-time employee who never sleeps and costs just 10,000 rupees?"

"We are seeing a huge shift," Haptik product manager Suji Ravi said in the webinar, which Reuters reporters attended. "Brands are not investing in human agents and they want to deploy AI agents."

For LimeChat client Mamaearth, an Indian personal-care brand, the main attraction of AI chatbots is scalability, said Vipul Maheshwari, head of product and analytics at parent firm Honasa Consumer HONA.NS.

"Providing good customer support is make or break for us," he said. "But can we infinitely scale my customer support team? Absolutely not."

The chatbot used by Mamaearth could go beyond simple assistance like order tracking, and help users with queries such as recommending the right products during pregnancy or, in some cases, handle an agitated customer, Maheshwari said.

COFFEE WITH NEHA

The promise and perils of AI are evident at The Media Ant. The Bengaluru-based advertising agency cut 40% of its workforce to about 100 over the past year and vacated space in another building to save on rent, said founder Samir Chaudhary.

The firm eliminated 15 salespeople, replacing them with AI bots that identify leads and send emails to prospective customers, Chaudhary said. A six-member call center was replaced with a voice agent called Neha that speaks in near-flawless, Indian-accented English.

When a Reuters reporter asked Neha about advertising on YouTube, she sought details about the budget and target markets, noted the requirements, and ended the conversation cheerfully: "I will email you the details ... have a great day."

"Ask her out for a coffee and she will laugh it off," Chaudhary said.

Yet the race to embrace AI isn't always smooth for companies.

Take Sweden's Klarna. Chatbots helped the fintech firm cut thousands of jobs last year, but its CEO told Reuters in September the company is now "trying to course correct" and use the technology to improve products rather than reduce costs.

Chatbots have limitations. While most generic e-commerce-related queries posed by a Reuters reporter were handled well by LimeChat bots, some stumped them.

When LimeChat client Knya's bot was asked for proof of its claim that a million medical professionals trust its products, such as its stethoscopes, it replied: "I am sorry, I don't have enough information to answer your question." Knya didn't respond to a request for comment.

Customer surveys show chatbots are still disliked by many.

An August 2024 EY survey of 1,000 Indian consumers found 62% made purchases influenced by AI recommendations, compared with 30% globally. Yet, "the desire for a human connection remains strong," EY noted, with 78% preferring online platforms that provide human support.

LimeChat's Gupta, though, said well-trained AI agents could resolve queries faster than humans. He said many standard bots pass conversations to a human agent when they encounter angry customers: "You need a very small number of people to just handle negative experiences."

FROM JAVA TO AI

In the 1990s and 2000s, India's tech boom fueled rural-to-urban migration. Cities like Bengaluru became outsourcing hubs as domestic firms, including Tata Consultancy Services TCS.NS, Infosys INFY.NS and Wipro WIPR.NS, grew into global juggernauts.

That expansion trickled through to Ameerpet, a Hyderabad neighborhood where university graduates fill classrooms to learn IT skills and earn certifications for tech jobs.

Ameerpet's training centers traditionally offered courses in Microsoft Office and programming languages like Java. Visiting in April, Reuters found these centers are increasingly focused on AI training.

Outside one, Quality Thought, a banner featured a robot overlooking a globe with the letters "AI."

The center was offering a nine-month course in AI data science and prompt engineering for about $1,360, more than double the price of a traditional web-development program.

"Recruiters are asking for students with basic AI skills," staffer Priyanka Kandulapati said. "We are going to streamline our courses even further to suit the demand."

In a discussion with startup founders last month about the pace of change, venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, who co-founded Sun Microsystems, offered a stark view of the future for India.

"All IT services will be replaced in the next five years," he said. "It's going to be pretty chaotic."

(Reporting by Munsif Vengattil in Bengaluru and Aditya Kalra in New Delhi. Additional reporting by Haripriya Suresh and Rishika Sadam in Hyderabad, Jatindra Dash in Bhubaneswar, Saurabh Sharma in Lucknow, Sai Ishwarbharath B in Bengaluru, and Praveen Paramasivam in Chennai. Editing by David Crawshaw.)

(([email protected]; [email protected]))

May 22 (Reuters) - TeamLease Services Ltd TLSV.NS:

• INDIA'S TEAMLEASE SERVICES CFO: REVENUE AT TEAMLEASE SHOULD GROW 20% TO 22% FOR FY26

• TEAMLEASE SERVICES CFO ON IT HIRING: AI DEFINITELY EATING INTO SALARIES AND NUMBER OF JOBS

Source text: [ID:]

Further company coverage: TLSV.NS

(([email protected];;))

May 21 (Reuters) - TeamLease Services Ltd TLSV.NS:

• Q4 CONSOL NET PROFIT 349.6 MILLION RUPEES

• Q4 CONSOL REVENUE FROM OPERATIONS 28.58 BILLION RUPEES

Source text: ID:nnAPN2U3OOK

Further company coverage: TLSV.NS

(([email protected];;))

** TeamLease Services TLSV.NS slips 4% to 1,900.15 rupees, lowest since August 2020

** Goldman Sachs Funds sells TLSV shares worth 175 mln rupees ($2 mln) in a block deal - exchange data

** Block deal at 1,960 rupees, below Tuesday's close of 1,980.05 rupees

** Indian markets were shut on Wednesday for a local holiday

** Stock rated "buy" on avg; media PT is 3,150 rupees - LSEG

** YTD, TLSV down 32%

($1 = 87.2425 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Manvi Pant in Bengaluru)

(([email protected]; +918447554364;))

Jan 29 (Reuters) - India's TeamLease Services TLSV.NS reported an 8.3% drop in third-quarter profit on Wednesday, below Street expectations, dragged down by a jump in expenses.

The staffing services provider's consolidated net profit fell to 284.3 million rupees ($3.29 million) for the three months ended Dec. 31, from 310 million rupees a year ago.

Analysts, on average, expected a profit of 310.5 million rupees, according to data compiled by LSEG.

Its shares dropped 2% after the results.

A 19% rise in Teamlease's employee costs and a 34% jump in its subcontracting expenses pushed total expenses higher by 19.7% to 29.03 billion rupees.

In the third quarter, staffing companies were hurt by headwinds in the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), and consumer packaged goods sectors, and as hiring was delayed because of the festive season, analysts have said.

Revenue from TeamLease's general staffing segment - which contributes over 90% to the total - rose 20%.

Revenue from its smaller specialised staffing business, which includes IT staffing services, dropped 7%.

Its total revenue rose by 19.5% to 29.21 billion rupees, above analysts' average expectation of 28.67 billion rupees.

"...we are planning to expand sales operations of IT staffing in Singapore and Middle East. Headwinds in BFSI may continue for staffing business on account of recent regulations issued by RBI (Reserve Bank of India)," TeamLease Managing Director Ashok Reddy said in a statement.

Peer Quess Corp QUEC.NS is expected to post results later in the day.

($1 = 86.5225 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Aleef Jahan in Bengaluru; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala)

(([email protected]))

Dec 20 (Reuters) - TeamLease Services Ltd TLSV.NS:

• TEAMLEASE SERVICES LTD - TO ACQUIRE 90% STAKE IN TSR DARASHAW

• TEAMLEASE SERVICES LTD - APPROVED ACQUISITION OF 30% STAKE IN CRYSTAL HR AND SECURITY SOLUTIONS

Source text: ID:nNSE9m5tzb

Further company coverage: TLSV.NS

(([email protected];))

Nov 6 (Reuters) - TeamLease Services Ltd TLSV.NS:

• Q2 CONSOL NET PROFIT 245.8 MILLION RUPEES

• Q2 CONSOL REVENUE FROM OPERATIONS 27.97 BILLION RUPEES

Source text: ID:nBSE50051B

Further company coverage: TLSV.NS

(([email protected];;))

** Shares of India's Teamlease Services TLSV.NS drop 3.2% to 3,403.4 rupees, set to snap a four-session winning streak

** Staffing firm's Q1 profit missed estimates

** Mixed quarter, believe headwinds to be behind and margin likely to recover Q2 onwards - brokerage Motilal Oswal

** Out of 9 analysts covering the stock, at least three hiked PTs after results, lifting median PT to 3,455 rupees on the day from 3,330 rupees a month ago - LSEG data

** Day's move trims YTD gains to 6.3%

(Reporting by Hritam Mukherjee in Bengaluru)

(([email protected];))

** Shares of staffing firm Teamlease Services Ltd TLSV.NS rise as much as 5.5% to 3,070 rupees

** Indian government proposes three schemes for employment-linked incentives in federal budget to incentivise formal sector employment

** Stock was up 0.6% before announcement

** More than 100,000 shares traded, 2.1x 30-day avg volume

(Reporting by Nandan Mandayam in Bengaluru)

(([email protected]; Mobile: +91 9591011727;))

Repeats story initially published on July 21; no changes to story text

By Sahiba Chawdhary and Ira Dugal

PRAYAGARAJ, India/MUMBAI, July 21 (Reuters) - Sunil Kumar, a 30-year-old, has spent the last 9 years of his life chasing a job in the Indian government.

Packed with scores of others in makeshift classrooms under tin roofs with barely enough light and air, Kumar has spent years cramming for a variety of tests, including the prestigious civil services exam needed to get a job as a federal government bureaucrat. He has also tried for a provincial civil services post and two other tests for lower level government positions.

He has been unsuccessful in 13 attempts to get a job.

A resident of Uttar Pradesh, the country's most populous state, Kumar says he will continue to try for a government job until he turns 32, three years short of the cut-off for him to appear in a civil services exam.

"There is more security in government jobs," said Kumar. "If it happens in 2-3 years, the struggle of 10 years will be worth it."

According to government figures, 220 million people applied for federal jobs between 2014-2022, of whom 722,000 were selected. Many of those would have been repeat attempts, but still, tens of millions of young Indians chase government jobs every year even though the economy is booming and the private sector is expanding.

The trend underscores cultural and economic anxieties facing many Indians. Despite living in the world’s fastest-growing major economy, many are grappling with an uncertain employment market where job opportunities, let alone job security, are hard to come by. Many see government employment as more secure than private-sector jobs in the world's most populous nation.

"If one person in the family gets a government job, the family believes they are settled for life," said Zafar Baksh, who runs a training institute for those appearing in tests for such jobs.

In neighbouring Bangladesh, student protests against reserved quotas in government jobs killed more than 100 people last week.

Since 2014, India's GDP has grown from $2 trillion to near $3.5 trillion in fiscal 2023-24 (April-March) and is expected to expand 7.2% in the current year.

The aspirants say the government offers lifelong security, health benefits, pensions and housing, which they may not get in private employment. Few will admit to it, but many of the government jobs also offer the prospect of money under the table.

Growing demand for the cram school classes has attracted large players and lessons have moved online too, said Baksh, who sees it as a lucrative and perennial business.

"There will always be demand."

NOT ENOUGH GOOD JOBS

Discontent over employment opportunities was cited by analysts as a key reason for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party failing to win a majority on its own in the April-May general election, and returning to power only with the support of allies.

Government data released this month showed 20 million new employment opportunities were generated in India each year since 2017/18 but private economists said much of this was self-employment and temporary farm hiring rather than formal positions with regular wages.

The government, which presents the first budget since the election next week, is likely to push job creation by giving tax incentives for new manufacturing facilities as well as by encouraging local procurement across sectors like defence, Nomura said in a note this month. But these will take time to yield jobs.

"It's not just that there aren't enough jobs out there, it's also that there are not enough jobs that pay well and give you security of tenure and other benefits," said Rosa Abraham, assistant professor at the Centre for Sustainable Employment at Azim Premji University in Bengaluru city.

For 22-year old Pradeep Gupta, who hopes to land a government job, working in the private sector is the "last option".

"There is honour, job security and less pressure" in a government job, he said, speaking in the Uttar Pradesh city of Prayagraj, a booming centre of cram schools.

Nearly 5 million students applied for 60,000 vacancies in the Uttar Pradesh police force earlier this year and an exam for the post of constable in central government security agencies saw 4.7 million applicants for 26,000 posts.

Another giving applicants a shot at positions such as office boys and drivers in government departments, drew close to 2.6 million applicants in 2023 for about 7,500 jobs.

Across all levels of government, including armed forces, schools, health services and the military, nearly 6 million jobs remain unfilled, India's main opposition party, the Indian National Congress, has estimated.

An email to the federal government seeking data on government employment and vacancies was not answered.

GOOD BUSINESS

For Maroof Ahmed, who has been running a cram school in Prayagraj since 2014, this has meant good business.

Currently, he says, his academy has five branches, tutoring close to 25,000 - 30,000 students a year through physical and online classes.

Success rates, or those who procure jobs, are low at about 5-10%, but demand remains high, he said.

No data was available on the number of such coaching institutes across the country since much of the industry is informal and unorganised.

The clamour for government jobs is as much about attitudes toward work as it is about the state of India's job market, said Rituparna Chakraborty, co-founder of staffing firm TeamLease Services.

"The private sector is based on meritocracy and responds to economic ups and downs," she said. "In the government sector, once you get a job, mostly irrespective of your performance, your future is secure."
($1 = 83.6200 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Sahiba Chawdhary in Prayagaraj, Ira Dugal in Mumbai; Additional Reporting by Saurabh Sharma in Lucknow; Editing By Raju Gopalakrishnan)

(([email protected]; +91-9833024892;))

Corrects name of Saurabh Sharma in additional reporting line, no change to story text

By Sahiba Chawdhary and Ira Dugal

PRAYAGARAJ, India/MUMBAI, July 21 (Reuters) - Sunil Kumar, a 30-year-old, has spent the last 9 years of his life chasing a job in the Indian government.

Packed with scores of others in makeshift classrooms under tin roofs with barely enough light and air, Kumar has spent years cramming for a variety of tests, including the prestigious civil services exam needed to get a job as a federal government bureaucrat. He has also tried for a provincial civil services post and two other tests for lower level government positions.

He has been unsuccessful in 13 attempts to get a job.

A resident of Uttar Pradesh, the country's most populous state, Kumar says he will continue to try for a government job until he turns 32, three years short of the cut-off for him to appear in a civil services exam.

"There is more security in government jobs," said Kumar. "If it happens in 2-3 years, the struggle of 10 years will be worth it."

According to government figures, 220 million people applied for federal jobs between 2014-2022, of whom 722,000 were selected. Many of those would have been repeat attempts, but still, tens of millions of young Indians chase government jobs every year even though the economy is booming and the private sector is expanding.

The trend underscores cultural and economic anxieties facing many Indians. Despite living in the world’s fastest-growing major economy, many are grappling with an uncertain employment market where job opportunities, let alone job security, are hard to come by. Many see government employment as more secure than private-sector jobs in the world's most populous nation.

"If one person in the family gets a government job, the family believes they are settled for life," said Zafar Baksh, who runs a training institute for those appearing in tests for such jobs.

In neighbouring Bangladesh, student protests against reserved quotas in government jobs killed more than 100 people last week.

Since 2014, India's GDP has grown from $2 trillion to near $3.5 trillion in fiscal 2023-24 (April-March) and is expected to expand 7.2% in the current year.

The aspirants say the government offers lifelong security, health benefits, pensions and housing, which they may not get in private employment. Few will admit to it, but many of the government jobs also offer the prospect of money under the table.

Growing demand for the cram school classes has attracted large players and lessons have moved online too, said Baksh, who sees it as a lucrative and perennial business.

"There will always be demand."

NOT ENOUGH GOOD JOBS

Discontent over employment opportunities was cited by analysts as a key reason for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party failing to win a majority on its own in the April-May general election, and returning to power only with the support of allies.

Government data released this month showed 20 million new employment opportunities were generated in India each year since 2017/18 but private economists said much of this was self-employment and temporary farm hiring rather than formal positions with regular wages.

The government, which presents the first budget since the election next week, is likely to push job creation by giving tax incentives for new manufacturing facilities as well as by encouraging local procurement across sectors like defence, Nomura said in a note this month. But these will take time to yield jobs.

"It's not just that there aren't enough jobs out there, it's also that there are not enough jobs that pay well and give you security of tenure and other benefits," said Rosa Abraham, assistant professor at the Centre for Sustainable Employment at Azim Premji University in Bengaluru city.

For 22-year old Pradeep Gupta, who hopes to land a government job, working in the private sector is the "last option".

"There is honour, job security and less pressure" in a government job, he said, speaking in the Uttar Pradesh city of Prayagraj, a booming centre of cram schools.

Nearly 5 million students applied for 60,000 vacancies in the Uttar Pradesh police force earlier this year and an exam for the post of constable in central government security agencies saw 4.7 million applicants for 26,000 posts.

Another giving applicants a shot at positions such as office boys and drivers in government departments, drew close to 2.6 million applicants in 2023 for about 7,500 jobs.

Across all levels of government, including armed forces, schools, health services and the military, nearly 6 million jobs remain unfilled, India's main opposition party, the Indian National Congress, has estimated.

An email to the federal government seeking data on government employment and vacancies was not answered.

GOOD BUSINESS

For Maroof Ahmed, who has been running a cram school in Prayagraj since 2014, this has meant good business.

Currently, he says, his academy has five branches, tutoring close to 25,000 - 30,000 students a year through physical and online classes.

Success rates, or those who procure jobs, are low at about 5-10%, but demand remains high, he said.

No data was available on the number of such coaching institutes across the country since much of the industry is informal and unorganised.

The clamour for government jobs is as much about attitudes toward work as it is about the state of India's job market, said Rituparna Chakraborty, co-founder of staffing firm TeamLease Services.

"The private sector is based on meritocracy and responds to economic ups and downs," she said. "In the government sector, once you get a job, mostly irrespective of your performance, your future is secure."
($1 = 83.6200 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Sahiba Chawdhary in Prayagaraj, Ira Dugal in Mumbai; Additional Reporting by Saurabh Sharma in Lucknow; Editing By Raju Gopalakrishnan)

(([email protected]; +91-9833024892;))

** Shares of TeamLease Services TLSV.NS up 3% at 3,530 rupees, highest since April 15

** Manpower services provider's quarterly consol rev from ops rose ~20% Y/Y, PAT up ~15%

** More than 55,000 shares traded, 1.8x the 30-day avg

** Avg rating of 9 analysts covering the stock is "buy;" their median PT is 3,180 rupees - LSEG

** Stock up 10% YTD

(Reporting by Aleef Jahan in Bengaluru)

(([email protected]))

April 8 (Reuters) - TeamLease Services Ltd TLSV.NS:

• TEAMLEASE SERVICES - CO AS ON MARCH 31 HAS NO OUTSTANDING LONG-TERM BORROWING OF 1 BILLION RUPEES OR ABOVE

Source text for Eikon: ID:nBSE283V6Q

Further company coverage: TLSV.NS

(([email protected];))

BENGALURU, Jan 30 (Reuters) - India's TeamLease Services TLSV.NS reported a return to profit growth on Tuesday after four straight quarters of falls, as steady growth in the general staffing business made up for weak demand for specialised IT staffing services.

The company, which hires and trains people in several skills before supporting their placements, said its consolidated net profit rose 7% to 310 million Indian rupees (nearly $4 million) in the three months ended Dec. 31.

Overall consolidated revenue from operations rose nearly 22% to 24.45 billion rupees.

Steady hiring in the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) and consumer verticals helped the company notch strong growth in its general staffing business.

Revenue from the general staffing business, which accounted for about 92% of the total, rose nearly 23%.

Meanwhile, revenue from the specialised business rose 12.3%, even as key IT clients slowed or delayed hiring.

The $245-billion-worth Indian IT industry has slowed after gaining immensely from the pandemic-induced boom in digital services, as clients slashed spending on discretionary projects amid inflationary pressures.

"Our operating margins are improving steadily despite sluggish demand in specialised staffing," Managing Director Ashok Reddy said in a statement.

TeamLease's core profit margin expanded to 1.5% from 1.4% sequentially.

The company's Degree Apprenticeship (DA) business saw a net positive trainee headcount growth during the third quarter, aided by several government and private training programs.

DA business has turned net positive for the first time after the withdrawal of the National Employability Enhancement Scheme (NEEM), Reddy said adding that the scheme was discontinued in December 2022 and previously hurt quarterly results.

($1 = 83.1091 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Dimpal Gulwani in Bengaluru; Editing by Janane Venkatraman)

(([email protected];))

** Shares of Teamlease Services TLSV.NS soar nearly 20% to trade at 3,239 rupees, their highest since September 2022

** As per LSEG data, 52,635 shares changed hands in a block deal at 2,776 rupees apiece

** TLSV last up 8.6%

** If trend holds, stock on track to advance for five straight sessions - longest winning streak since August end

** Co gained 11.2% in last four sessions

** Stock most active since late-Aug in 2018 as more than 590,000 shares trade, 14.3x 30-day avg volume

** TLSV up nearly 17% YTD

(Reporting by Rama Venkat in Bengaluru)

(([email protected]; https://twitter.com/ramavenkat0607;))

By Savio Shetty

Nov 28 (Reuters) - Soaring attrition in India's financial sector will persist through next fiscal year due to a demand-supply mismatch, a senior executive at TeamLease, one of India's largest staffing services providers, said on Tuesday.

HDFC Bank, India's largest private lender, saw its employee turnover rate rise to 34% in the last fiscal year from 27.6% a year earlier. At Axis Bank, it climbed to nearly 35% from 31.6%.

Meanwhile, Kotak Mahindra Bank's attrition surged to about 50%, with smaller peer Yes Bank in tow at 43%.

"The demand for salespeople (selling personal, home, agriculture and other loans) is huge," Kartik Narayan, the chief executive for staffing at TeamLease, told the Reuters Trading India forum.

These employees are underpaid and undertrained and a salary hike of even 1,000 rupees ($12) per month is enough to make them switch jobs, he added.

Narayan expects this trend to continue, adding that employment in the BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance) sector is under "tremendous pressure", with frontline attrition rates persisting at 30%-40%.

Further, the central bank's measures to rein in unsecured lending will not impact the sector's employment needs, he said.

Earlier this month, the Reserve Bank of India tightened norms for personal loans and credit cards, raising concerns about a potential slowdown in loan growth.

"I feel that (in the) immediate (future), perhaps there won't be an effect," Narayan said.

While the general staffing business is growing robustly, tech staffing is going through a different cycle, he added.

The hiring boom during the pandemic due to a sharp rise in demand for digital products has now moderated.

"Some of this (tech hiring) is also cyclical and we do expect it to start recovering in another two quarters," Narayan said.

(Join Trading India, a chat room hosted on Refinitiv Messenger: https://bit.ly/3TNDwkC)

(Reporting by Savio Shetty; Editing by Sohini Goswami)

(([email protected];))

BENGALURU, Nov 8 (Reuters) - India's TeamLease Services TLSV.NS reported a smaller-than-expected drop in profit on Wednesday, as healthy growth in its general staffing business helped make up for a slowdown in its specialised IT staffing services.

The company, which engages in hiring and training people for several skills before helping placing them, said consolidated net profit fell nearly 15% to 272.7 million Indian rupees ($3.28 million) for the quarter ended Sept. 30.

Analysts, on average, had expected a nearly 17% drop to 265.8 million rupees, according to LSEG data.

Teamlease's general staffing business saw strong revenue growth, driven by the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) and consumer verticals.

The company's degree apprenticeship business saw a net positive trainee headcount growth for August and September, aided by several government and private training programmes.

This comes after the discontinuation of the government's National Employability Enhancement Scheme (NEEM) in December 2022 hurt previous quarters' results. The company said it expects placement for the remaining NEEM trainees to be completed by fiscal 2024.

"Staffing outlook has been positive on the back of strong hiring trends across all non-IT industry verticals," said Managing Director Ashok Reddy.

All of this helped Teamlease recover from weak demand in its specialised staffing business. IT service providers predict their clients will cut back on discretionary spending, including freezing hiring after a pandemic boom.

"Expect this year to be flattish from a revenue and margin perspective," Teamlease said, adding that uncertainty in IT staffing continued.

This is the company's fourth straight quarterly profit drop.

The revenue in its general staffing business grew 17% while the specialised business rose 3%. Consolidated revenue from operations rose 16% to 22.73 billion rupees, in line with analyst estimates.

The company's core profit margin slipped to 1.4% from 1.6% a year earlier due to a 16% jump in total expenses.

($1 = 83.2496 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Dimpal Gulwani in Bengaluru; Editing by Rashmi Aich and Janane Venkatraman)

(([email protected];))

** Shares of India's TeamLease Services TLSV.NS up as much as 3.24% at 2,533 rupees, hitting their highest level since July 3

** Antique Stock Broking raises PT to 3,800 rupees from 2,700 rupees

** General staffing expected to see strong growth in coming quarters, robust hiring in Q2/Q3 due to festive season - brokerage

** Margin should improve from Q2 onward, Antique writes in a note

** More than 26,000 shares changed hands at 1:08 p.m. IST, 0.8x 30-day avg

** Mean recommendation of 10 analysts covering the stock is "buy"; median PT 2,800 rupees - LSEG data

** YTD, stock down 0.3%

(Reporting by Hritam Mukherjee in Bengaluru)

(([email protected];))

By Ira Dugal and Siddhi Nayak

MUMBAI, July 27 (Reuters) - India's private lenders are contending with soaring attrition amid strong demand for loans and the rush to capture a larger share of the crowded market.

Credit demand grew 15% last financial year and is seen expanding 10-12% this year, driven by retail loans. This growth is mounting pressure on the frontline staff and a jump in employee turnover raising risks of mis-selling and service disruption.

HDFC Bank, India's largest private lender, saw its employee turnover rate over the last year rise to 34%, while Axis Bank was at nearly 35%. Kotak Mahindra Bank's attrition surged to about 50%, with smaller peer Yes Bank in toe at 43%.

"It is a problem the entire industry is grappling with," said Axis Bank CEO Amitabh Chaudhry on the lender's earnings call on Wednesday.

The bank is exploring various options, including career progression and training, to retain employees, Chaudhry said.

"Attrition happens when there is high demand for an industry's services and companies are pushing productivity, as is the case with financial services," said Rituparna Chakraborty, co-founder of staffing firm Teamlease Services.

"We are seeing attrition mostly on the sales side which is a trend across the banking industry," Yes Bank CEO Prashant Kumar said in an earnings call over the weekend. The bank is working towards controlling it and would "not like to see an overall attrition of more than 25-30%," he said.

An entry-level relationship manager with up to two years of experience typically earns between 30,000-35,000 rupees ($792.66) a month, including incentives linked to the revenue they can generate.

Remuneration in the category has grown 8-10% annually over the past year, in line with the broader job market, Teamlease's Chakraborty said. "But staffers will try to maximize gains in a growing market by switching jobs if they have the opportunity," she added.

Exits are not just for salary upgrade but also for perks like flexibility in working conditions, said another banker who declined to be named. Most exits happen within six months of joining, this person added.

Kotak Mahindra Bank, which has seen the sharpest jump in attrition, saw the worst churn at junior levels, it said.

While the bank is seeing about 10% attrition at the senior level and 20% at the mid-level, attrition is nearly 50% at the junior level, said Shanti Ekambaram, whole-time director at Kotak Mahindra Bank.

"The bank is working on areas such as engagement, training and technology and automation to control attribution," Ekambaram said at the lender's post-earnings analyst call over the weekend.

High employee turnover can pose significant operational risks to banks including disruption in customer services and ethical issues, MK Jain, a deputy governor at India's central bank said in a speech in May. Jain has since retired.

($1 = 82.0023 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Ira Dugal and Siddhi Nayak; Editing by Dhanya Ann Thoppil)

(([email protected]; +91-9833024892;))

July 26 (Reuters) - TeamLease Services Ltd TLSV.NS:

• INDIA'S TEAMLEASE SERVICES JUNE-QUARTER CONSOL NET PROFIT 264 MILLION RUPEES VERSUS 265.3 MILLION RUPEES

• TEAMLEASE SERVICES JUNE-QUARTER CONSOL REVENUE FROM OPERATIONS 21.72 BILLION RUPEES VERSUS 18.79 BILLION RUPEES

Source text for Eikon: [ID:]

Further company coverage: TLSV.NS

(([email protected];))

** Shares of staffing firm TeamLease Services TLSV.NS up as much as 5.3% at 2,264.75 rupees

** Stock posts biggest intraday pct gain since May 17

** Brokerage Motilal Oswal upgrades stock to "buy" with a target price of 2,890 rupees

** Progressive reforms and regulations will lead to formalization and increased penetration for staffing companies in India says Motilal Oswal

** The formal workforce is expected to almost double by 2030 to nearly 40%

** Estimates revenue growth to accelerate to 21% YoY in FY25, aided by a recovery in IT Services

** Of the 11 analysts tracking TeamLease, five rate it "buy" or higher, three "sell" or "strong sell" and three "hold;" median TP is 2,520 rupees - Refinitiv data

(Reporting by Navamya Ganesh Acharya in Bengaluru)

(([email protected]; +91 8805175330 ;))

** Shares of staffing firm TeamLease Services TLSV.NS fall as much as 3.7% to 2,229.95 rupees

** Stock on track to snap three consecutive sessions of gains, if trends hold

** Co on Wednesday reported 22.4% fall in Q4 consolidated net profit, much steeper than the roughly 9% drop estimated, according to Refinitiv IBES

** Kotak Institutional Equities says FY2024-25 EPS estimates trimmed by 3% each on lower margin forecasts; retains "reduce" while raising TP to 2,300 rupees from 2,275 rupees

** Share price below 100-day and 200-day simple moving averages but above 50-day SMAs

** More than 35,000 shares change hands by 12:15 P.M. IST vs 30-day avg of 44,928 shares

** Avg rating of 11 analysts is "hold", with median PT of 2,600 rupees - Refinitiv data

** Stock down ~8.2% YTD, as of last close, underperforming Nifty 500 index .NIFTY500 which is down 0.1%

(Reporting by Ashish Chandra in Bengaluru)

(([email protected] (+91 7982114624))