If you rewind yourselves by an year, The Indian markets had "Decoupled" from the whole world and was surging ahead against all odds. Then the impact was felt slowly while the raising oil prices became the talk of the town. After that settled, India slowing down thought began to sink in amidst the mass exodus of the FIIs. Nobody's sure about the future and everybody is gloomy in predicting it too.
There are a lot of lessons to learn from this cycle and a lot of things to look forward too!. India has'nt seen as many job cuts as the US . So we have'nt really felta major impact. The economic growth for the last 4-5 years were primarily driven by the increasing spend by the salaried class. IT/ ITES jobs which triggered further more local jobs in India and ever increasing salaries led to a huge consumption boom. Many of us started living today with tomorrow's money. Many pledged their future income for 15-20 years to buy their dream homes and this inflated real estate prices. Stock market boom also created a great sense of confidence in all.
The retail consumption is going to be driven by the jobs that we have ( either internally generated or by MNCs). When the employment scenario looks bleak then the driver for consumption goes down.
If job cuts start happening in India too, it may lead to a mini-subprime within India. If Job losses are going to be minimal then we may push through and jump back faster.
IT/ ITES jobs have almost been the destination for most of the urban youth. These are the people who triggered big consumption. May be a decade from now , we may see these sectors loose sheen and become just another job ( like a Bank officer's job now which was looked at with awe a decade ago!). Such changes may bring in sanity to the society and lead us to inclusive development. If we look at the IT/ITES stock prices we don't see any encouraging signals in terms of the near future . A dent in the increase of salaries becomes a new item everyday and those who took home loans factoring higher salary growth might have to suffer.
Whatever it is, this too shall pass and these are the times we should remind ourselves of good old Indian ways of living i.e. " Living a debt free life ( living within the means)" and " Save for a rainy day". These mantras when sincerely applied to our lives will make us immune to financial crisis.
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