Cos scramble to hire GST specialists

Mumbai: Even as the job scenario in a few sectors becomes a bit grim, a new demand for ‘GST specialists’ and ‘GST professionals’ is creating a lot of positivity. Recruitment sites are brimming with job postings on GST (Goods and Services Tax) specialists and professionals who can join companies on an urgent basis to assist them in compliance and implementation work concerning this landmark tax reform.

Over the last one week, there have been numerous postings with candidates being offered salaries in the Rs 3-7 lakh per annum range by some companies.

An FMCG company put out an advertisement for a GST specialist with knowledge of direct taxation and is offering a salary of Rs 7 lakh per annum. The demand for GST specialists and professionals is way beyond services being offered by audit and taxation firms in India. Hiring experts said this also creates a new avenue for IT professionals, who may have lost their jobs, to re-skill and help with their expertise in project management. A GST specialist may well turn out to be the new version of a data scientist.

Paul Dupuis, the newly appointed MD & CEO at Randstad India, told TOI, “I see new opportunities in GST. There will be specialists required to support the enablement of the whole movement of GST and that will cover every function. There will be people that will handle the e-payment model, the flow of information, the flow of money and the protection of privacy along that flow. It’s hard to predict what it will look like, but there will be opportunities that will get created.”

Dupuis said companies are at the cusp of understanding how the implementation would take place and are thus looking out for specialists. As for candidates, Dupuis said, “Project managers would be required and IT people are typically agile and generally good at project management. The advice we are giving to these candidates is to re-skill and become relevant. An e-commerce IT specialist, for instance, could get placed in a pharmaceutical company. It will result in more jobs. We just haven’t seen what it will translate into yet.”