Employment rate is going south, Choksi defrauded Karnataka Bank, and more trending news

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Karnataka Bank is the latest casualty of the frauds perpetrated by Mehul Choksi’s Gitanjali Gems. The state-run lender informed the exchanges and the RBI that the jewellery firm defrauded it of ?86.47 crore. The exposure was in the form of working capital loans extended under consortium arrangements, and not the letter of undertaking (LoU) route that Choksi and his nephew Nirav Modi took to swindle Punjab National Bank out of $2 billion.

India is losing jobs faster than it is creating new ones. According to the Reserve Bank of India’s KLEMS (K-capital, L-labor, E-energy, M-materials, and S-purchased services) database, employment contracted by 0.1% in the financial year 2015-16 and 0.2% in 2014-15. Job growth fell in several sectors, including agriculture, forestry, fishing, mining, transport equipment and trade. This, despite the GDP growing at a brisk 7.4% in 2014-15 and 8.2% in 2015-16. Though some of this slump can be attributed to a movement towards high-productivity jobs, a chunk of the workforce switching to other sectors hasn’t been able to land jobs.

The government has doubled the cap on tax-free gratuity to ?20 lakh for private sector jobs. Employee unions had been demanding an increase after the Centre raised the limit for central government jobs following the implementation of the 7th Pay Commission. All employees who have completed five years of continuous service in a company with at least 10 employees are eligible for gratuity. The government has also fixed the total period of maternity leave at 26 weeks, up from 12 weeks currently.

The Cambridge Analytica data breach hasn’t deterred brands from advertising on Facebook. Citing media buyers, Mint reports that companies’ ad spend on Facebook remains intact as they are still getting user traction on the platform. “The spend will go down only if a… Unilever or P&G decides to pull the plug,” said Rajiv Dingra, founder and CEO of digital agency WATConsult. The social network, which claims to work with India’s top 200 advertisers, earns more than ?2,000 crore from advertising in the country.

Indian employers are biased towards men. A World Bank report, based on data from blue-collar jobs site Babajob, shows that more than a third of all job postings mention the employee's preferred gender as male, and close to two-thirds prefer men over women. Worryingly, positions requiring significant experience have a preference for male employees even as women mostly land low-quality, low-paid informal jobs. While employers become more open to female candidates for white-collar jobs, the bias isn't completely eliminated. The study also found that jobs specifying male preference offer nearly 20% higher pay than those that targeted women.

Idea of the Day: The world’s best leaders have a powerful presence — but that doesn’t mean the right voice or handshake, says leadership expert Dr. Marshall Goldsmith. It’s the ability to be fully attentive (which means breaking that multitasking habit).

“What is the real key to powerful leadership presence? It is the capacity to be fully present. True leaders are present for a task, for a conversation, for the moment, for an opportunity. Present for their larger purpose in the world.”

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Nirajita Banerjee /  Share this using #DailyRundown