Chennai: The World Bank stated that India is the sixth largest economy in the world, surpassing France and on course to go past the United Kingdom which currently sits one position above.
However, a recent report stated, quite bluntly, that Indians at their peak work only for 6.5 years while the Chinese work for 20 years.
The two do not go hand-in-hand and it is imperative to see between the lines as to what brought such a causality in the Indian industry.
India’s gross domestic product (GDP) of $2.59 trillion is expected to keep growing with the current year growth pegged at 7.3 per cent by the IMF.
As per latest data released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO), India’s GDP at current prices is expected to touch Rs 188.41 lakh crore in 2018-19, an increase of 12.3 per cent from Rs 167.73 lakh crore in 2017-18. The country’s per capita GDP is likely to touch Rs 1,41,447 (approximately $2,020) in 2018-19, it said.
But according to reports, the Chinese hold on to top-level jobs around three times longer than Indians do. The work culture in India according to reports is worse as a survey conducted by US travel agency Expedia found that Indians are the most vacation-deprived in the world.
According to the survey that concentrated on work culture and holidays, up to 75 per cent of Indians said they were vacation-deprived. As per previous data, this is the highest in the world and also significantly more than 2017’s 60 per cent.
In comparison, on the other hand, the least vacation-deprived countries, Spain, and UK which are only 47 per cent and 48 per cent, respectively, felt that they were missing out on holidays, the report said.
The job crisis in India that saw white collar workers get affected more, came after the implementation of demonetisation and GST. It is estimated that more than 3.5 million people lost their jobs in the past three years.
Speaking to News Today about the matter, director and CEO of CIEL HR Services, Aditya Narayan Mishra, said, “Chinese work culture is a result of long years of their traditional family culture and hierarchy. Indian workplace has undergone tremendous changes in the last 20 years of globalization India has deeply entrenched itself. A large part of our cities have undergone socio-economic and sociology-cultural changes.”
He said white collar workers are now ambitious and risk-taking and the economy has been able to support them.
“Indian living has been a lot more in nuclear families in the last two decades. Free movement of talent within the country has made people move to new cities, thus putting additional stress on them to manage daily chores at home, childcare and sometimes, care for the sick. All of this has compounded the problems of mental health. All of these have contributed to faster burn-out among Indians than the Chinese,” he said.
Taking a different approach, COO and joint director, Bruhat Insights Global, Umasanker Kandaswamy, said, “Lower tenures of professionals in India is a typical characteristic of a growing economy. This is due to the prevalence of opportunities available for a certain segment of the workforce, especially in knowledge economy industries. A case to point in the Artificial Intelligence (AI) sector which has a plethora of opportunities and therefore is attracting professionals from various domains.”
“However, it is likely that the phenomenon of longer tenures experienced by employees in China, could also be due to the dominance of the manufacturing sector. In India too, the manufacturing sector sees people pursuing longer careers. At Bruhat, we find that the average career span of an individual in the old age economy is around 6.5 years, while in the modern economy is only 2.8 years at the entry level,” he added.
Experts stated that due to its ageing population, China is slowing down. Add to that political uncertainties with the trade war, the conditions work in favour of India, they say. The large deal sizes and activity levels in the consumer space like the Walmart buyout of Flipkart, are results of the same, they added.