A New Universe of Jobs

After 8 years at Microsoft, most recently at their research center in Bangalore, Sean Blagsvedt decided to leave and enter the world of social entrepreneurship.  He was inspired by a research paper by Anirudh Krishna at Duke University which concluded that the biggest reason why households in developing nations fall into poverty was ill health and health care costs, and the biggest factor for escaping poverty, as one would expect, was through income diversification and new jobs.  In India, new jobs, particularly amongst unskilled workers, are largely acquired through social networks and informal referrals.  So, in 2007, Sean set up Babajobs.com, with the idea of providing job seekers in the informal sector access to employers at a much larger scale and with much greater efficiency through the use of digital media.

With the cheapest calling rates in the world, India today has over 500 million mobile phone subscribers and deep penetration amongst low-income households.  Through a series of text menus on a mobile phone, Babajobs.com allows job seekers to upload information on their backgrounds, types of skills, salary requirements and location.  They can also provide this information physically at a Babajobs.com data collection center.  Babajobs.com organizes this data such that employers can search online for candidates by location, position, language, gender and other parameters.  The employer then pays a fee to access and contact its choice of candidates.

Currently, most of the job seekers are unskilled or blue-collar workers such as maids, cooks, drivers, or child caretakers.  However, the site is increasingly attracting workers from other areas such as receptionists, sales people, BPO/IT professionals, and accountants.  The site went live to service the city of Bangalore in 2007, and in early 2009, in a partnership with Airtel, the service went national.  It is currently available in 11 cities.  In just over 2 years, the site already has over 65,000 job seekers, over 30,000 employers and over 350,000 active jobs.

By dramatically expanding the universe of choices for both job seekers and employers, Babajobs.com is creating significant efficiencies in the world of employment.  According to its own data, the average commute time for a Babajobs.com job acquirer is down 7 minutes in each direction and average salaries are up 21%.  In a country that needs to provide over 18 million new jobs a year just to keep up with its population growth rate, Babajobs.com’s service is a small, but important step in the right direction.