With the economy improving domestic air travel has increased significantly. In April 41.9 lakh people took to air travel which is 24.7% higher than last year April figures of 33.6 lakh. The number of people travelled by flight in April surpassed the pre-slowdown April 2008’s figure of 37.8 lakh. Since travel season starts from April, the industry is expecting enormous growth in the next couple of months. LCC’s dominate Indian skies, thanks to the economic slowdown which witnessed even corporate using budget flights. Jet and kingfisher also have majority of their flights in LCC.

According to Kapil Kaul, India head of the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA) said, “Today almost 70% of all domestic flights are budget ones. Full service domestic service will further find its share falling as biggest LCCs like IndiGo and SpiceJet will induct more planes this year. Domestic and even regional international travel (to neighboring countries) will be dominated only by this model.” Air India currently does not have a domestic LCC and witness lowest occupancy of 73% in April. With LCC’s dominating the industry, Air India will have no option but to introduce domestic LCC’s. As far as the market share is concerned, Jet Airways enjoys 26% share, followed by Kingfisher with 21.4%. The major contributor for this increase in air travel is economic growth, relaxation on curbs on air travel by government and corporate sector.

With the Reserve Bank of India coming down heavily on commercial banks for discriminating existing customers, banks offering home loans at teaser rates are planning to withdraw the same in the coming month.

Last year, many banks started offering home loans at very low interest, some even as low as 8%, much below their prime lending rate (PLR). This was part of bankers’ effort to woo customers during the economic slowdown. When low interest rate loans were offered, it was presumed that the teaser rate would continue at least for the first two years.

RBI had earlier asked the Indian Bank Association (IBA), which comprises of all commercial banks, the reason for offering low interest loans to new customers, while levying higher rate from existing customers. The first to announce the exit is Union Bank of India, which has withdrawn the special home loan with effect from 15 February 2010.

Indian Bank Association chairman and Union Bank of India CMD M V Nair confirmed RBI’s directive to banks to bring in transparency regarding home loans. He also added that IBA is in agreement with the central bank concerning the need to be non-discriminative to new and existing customers.

Mr. Nair said that UBI would bring down the PLR by about 2%, which would bridge the gap. He said that this would also fit in with the RBI directive to have a common base rate. RBI had earlier asked banks to do away with the PLR system and follow a common base rate system with effect from 1April 2010.

All these changes may result in the loan rate going up to 9% or above.

The drop in hiring that accompanied economic slowdown has eased with its withdrawal. Indian and global companies are eagerly talent searching in India as a part of their post-recession plans.

Last decade saw India emerge as the hunting ground for talent among multinational corporations. The last two recessive years witnessed the rate of hiring come down due to the general downsizing trend. With the world slowly but surely emerging out of economic downturn, hiring spree is back.

The rise in outsourcing exports is prompting top Indian outsourcing companies like Infosys Technologies, Tata Consultancy Services and Wipro to restart their headhunting in bulk. Wipro took in almost 5,000 staff during the last quarter. This is a complete turnaround from the previous quarter, when it had downsized by above 600.

There is good news for students seeking campus recruitments. TCS is proposing to recruit 11,000 professionals in the present quarter, mostly freshmen as trainees. Last quarter, TCS added more than 7000 to its fold. Infosys is also not far behind with plans to hire 6,000 professionals.

Multinational companies are looking towards India to fill positions across continents and profiles. Recruitment firms are expecting demand for about 100 top-level positions and a substantial number of lower level placements for Europe, Africa, Middle East and Asia-Pacific regions.

Africa is fast emerging as a good employment opportunity for telecom and mining professionals. Malaysia and Dubai remain as the coveted destination for those in construction industry. Indian engineers and managers are absorbed in large numbers by UAE’s oil and gas sectors. The US, Singapore and Canada retain their favorite tag with IT, semiconductor, banking and finance professionals.

The country is setting up an emergency social security system for the homeward expatriate workers who lost their jobs in the aftermath of economic slowdown.

Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, said that the Congress party-led government is committed to protecting the interests of this group and will be taking up the issue on top priority.

The latest crisis to affect the expat workforce is the Dubai credit debacle. It is estimated that there are 4.5 million Indians working in Gulf countries. Despite assurances that the crisis will not cast shadow on the Indian workforce, the recent developments reveal a different story.

India, along with China and Mexico, tops the list of world countries receiving maximum remittances from its population abroad. Remittances are most important for the economies of developing countries. According to the World Bank estimates, every dollar of remittance is equivalent to three dollars in real to the economy.

India’s remittance for the last fiscal year totaled a whopping $50 billion. The major source of India’s remittance is North America. However, the last few years saw the spurt of demand for labor in oil-rich Middle-eastern countries, which shifted the balance in their favor.

The recession has affected both skilled and semi-skilled workers abroad. Dr. Singh said that a ‘return and resettlement fund’ would be set up to provide social security net for the returning workers.

Indian Community Welfare Fund is already in place in 18 countries to lend emergency support to the Indian workers. The government is also negotiating social security agreements with countries having large Indian emigrant population. While agreements are already in force with Switzerland, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, labor agreements are being negotiated with Bahrain, Malaysia and Qatar.