Hiring pause: How not to lose heart when you lose your job

• Posted by Sindhuri G August 30, 2012 - Filed in Business - 2,009 views

  Sanjay Mandavia's flying career has nosedived. The 39-year-old Mumbai-based pilot with Kingfisher Airlines is off duty since March and has not received his salary for six months now.
  
  Sitting inside a life-size cockpit in a shed in an industrial complex in Gurgaon, Mandavia is now learning to fly all over again — albeit now in the virtual world. The captain with 17 years experience is partnering an international investor to seed a startup — Flywing Aviation — that will soon offer simulated flight training to pilots for the first time in India. "Earlier airlines sent their pilots overseas for such training. The facility now in India will help them save costs by up to 65%," he says.
  
  This shift from the real to the virtual world has not been easy for him. With a large family — two children, retired parents — and a home loan, life without a salary has been difficult. "I have not been at ease mentally for a long time," says the Mumbai-based pilot. He sees mayhem all around. Not just Kingfisher, things are bad for the industry. Losses have mounted. Many of his colleagues are working without salaries. Some have been laid-off. Nobody is hiring. Worse, a pilot's licence is dependent on his medical fitness. "That is something not totally in my control as I age," says Mandavia.
  
  Thankfully, his wife's business income is keeping the family afloat even as Mandavia is working overnight to reboot his career as an entrepreneur. Mandavia is not alone. And airline industry isn't the only one. Bang in the middle of an economic slowdown, when cost cuts and pay freezes are becoming popular, some sectors are going through particularly trying times. The list is worrying:

  

  
  The sizzling telecom industry is in a pause mode due to policy uncertainty. With 122 telecom licences cancelled by the Supreme Court, some 25,000-odd employees are likely to lose their jobs on this count alone. The banking sector is also going through a rough patch. Amid declining M&A deals, lower trading volumes in stock market, turmoil in insurance sector, brokerages and investment banks have already shed around 30% of their headcount in the past two years. Organised retailing — even as it consolidates — is in a wait-and-watch mode, pending the new FDI policy.
  
  "We have had booms and busts in the past. But this downturn is unlike any that liberalised India has seen," says R Suresh, MD, Stanton Chase International, an executive search firm.