ICAI reports 37% upward surge in demand for newly qualified CAs through its campus placement program

The current COVID-19 pandemic has made the entire world sit up and realise that medical exigencies are unpredictable and can cause a financial upheaval that is tough to handle. With the commencement of 2020-21 financial year the effects of coronavirus have affected the stability of the economy of 150 countries – jeopardising their lifestyle, economy, impacting business and assumption of common wellbeing which we had taken for granted. The lockdown has adversely have affected service sector like banks, restaurants, food vendors, and food delivery providers.

India faced a huge decline in government revenues and growth of the income for at least two quarters as the coronavirus hit economic activity of the country as a whole. A fall in investor sentiment impacted privatization plans, government and industry.

However, The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) the statutory body established for regulating the profession of Chartered Accountancy in the country even in this grave situation, reported an increase of 37% in demand for newly qualified CAs for employment in industry through its campus placement program that concluded recently.

The ICAI provides an opportunity both to employing organisations as well as young professional aspirants / experienced professionals to meet and explore the possibility of taking up positions in Industry. To encourage and enhance close links between the Chartered Accountants in Industry & Business and the Institute, since the year 1995, ICAI has been providing employment opportunities to the newly qualified Chartered Accountants through Campus Placement Programmes.

Generally, ICAI conducts campus placement programmes for its newly qualified Chartered Accountants twice a year (in February-March and August-September) immediately after the results of its final examination are declared.

No final examination was held in May 2020 due to the pandemic. Campus placements provide the students with a foot-in- the-door opportunity, enabling them to start off their career right after they have completed their course curriculum. Furthermore, they get to interact and engage with the industry professionals during the placement drives, which further help lay a foundation for their prospective career in the future as they familiarise with potential contacts from their chosen career field.

Campus Placement conducted virtually

As the lockdown had restricted the physical movement towards organising any event/ campus placement, the Institute taking note of all the factors and not letting the newly qualified Chartered Accountants miss the opportunity, organised the 1st ever Campus Placement through virtual mode. The major recruiters at the current year’s campus were from sectors like financial services, banking, IT, BPO and CA firms comprising of 80% of total recruitments. ICAI noted a 37% surge in the demand for newly qualified CA’s in this campus placement.

Let us refer to the table given below to understand the current campus placement held in comparison to corresponding period last year.

Year	2019	2020
Number of candidates registered for placement	9051	9272
Total number of companies	137	133
Jobs Offered	2135	2923
Maximum salary offered	Rs 24 lakhs per annum for domestic and Rs.36 lakhs per annum for international posting	Rs.23.28 lakhs per annum for domestic posting
Average Salary (per annum)	Rs. 7.43 lakh	Rs.8.91 lakh
Names of few companies	PricewaterhouseCoopers, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, TCS Genpact	PricewaterhouseCoopers, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, Infosys, TCS, Genpact
Whether new companies registered as recruiters? Or earlier companies were there?	21 new companies	18 new companies

Career Ascent

It is not only newly qualified CAs who are seeing demand surge, even experienced chartered accountants are in high demand. ICAI recently organised placement programme for experienced CAs titled, “Career Ascent” for which interviews were held from 22nd to 28th September, 2020. Here again, the number of recruiters doubled and vacancies quadrupled to almost 4 times as compared to last year. As against 14 recruiters last year, 29 recruiters registered for this programme declaring 899 vacancies as against 226 vacancies last year, for CAs with experience between 1 to 20 years.

With such steep increase in the demand of Chartered Accountants, CA. Atul Kumar Gupta, President ICAI shared “It would be incorrect to say that Chartered Accountants demand accelerates only when economy is growing. In fact, there role is more important in prevailing circumstances. Companies are looking for sound professional advisors who can manage their finances and working capital well thus providing lifeline to other functions. CAs with their education and training are best managers and complete business solution providers.”

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