Covid19 has impacted the entire world and its second wave has taken India by surprise. In a pleasant surprise, accounting jobs that would require physical presence in workplace are now going offshore, in an unlikely impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

With remote working becoming the new normal, consultants are now seeing offshore accounting jobs come to India. On a functional level, it would mean that entry-level chartered accountants who have cleared CA Intermediate or second level of the examination could become eligible for applying for these roles.

Shalin Parikh is the President and CEO Entigrity Group. He said that accounting firms would have high levels of client confidentiality and remote offshore roles would not have been a preferred option earlier, and this stigma was removed amid the pandemic.

Entigrity Group is one of the offshore staffing solutions providers to more than 550 accounting and tax firms situated across the United States and Canada.

Parikh added, “It is still initial days but the numbers are slowly growing. The stigma around building offshore accounting firm is going away. The pandemic has helped make the shift.”

Large, mid-sized and small companies, especially from markets like the US and Canada, are among the companies that are hiring.

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In the accounting space, India has a good talent pool. Gizelle Lobo is a Delhi-based hiring consultant. She said that while there are always job roles open for qualified CA professionals, the pandemic has forced companies to go cautious.

She further added, “While CAs would be consider the crème de la crème in India, not everyone is hiring. So, offshore accounting jobs are a good fit for such candidates.”

Pass percentage for the CA exam conducted by ICAI is close to 10 percent which ranks it among the toughest examinations in the country.  Global accounting firms are now eyeing candidates from this market, given the talent pool available in India with this qualification.

It is not feasible to set up physical presence in India for the mid-sized and small international firms, as explained by Shalin Parikh. He also elaborated, “These firms do not have the wherewithal to set up offices in India to access the global talent pool. So, the structure of offshore jobs works well for them.”

The only thing for Indian candidates to remember is that while salaries would be at par with the Indian firms or even better, there could be time-zone differences, which might impact work-life balance. Parikh further added that as cloud technology is being strengthened to protect data theft and cyber security, more companies will be open to hiring remotely.

He further added, “We have just scratched the surface for offshore accounting roles. The market will boom over the next few years.”

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Gloomy scenario

Though accountants, especially CAs are set to benefit from the new normal, the story is not all about sunshine for a large chunk of Indians, with many impoverished due to the pandemic. A study was carried out by the Centre for Sustainable Employment (CSE) at Azim Premji University, which aimed to document the impact of one year of Covid-19 pandemic in India. The study was titled State of Working India 2021 — One year of Covid, and it documents the impact of one on jobs, incomes, inequality, and poverty. The study presented a horrifying, dystopic and grim picture of post-Covid India.

One of the most alarming observations of the study was about the number of the people who were impoverished due to the pandemic.

An additional 230 million or 23 crore Indians fell below the national minimum wage poverty line due to the devastating economic impact of the pandemic, as per the study. All of these impoverished individuals are now earning below the national minimum wage threshold of Rs 375 per day, as recommended by the Anoop Satpathy committee.

India reported 173,790 new Covid-19 cases and 3,617 deaths in the last 24 hours ending 8 am on Saturday, which showed a decline in daily cases.  A total of 2,51,78,011 recoveries were reported across the country so far, while 2,84,601 patients recovered during the last 24 hours. As per the data with Union Health Ministry, the active caseload further declined to 22,28,724 with a drop of more than a lakh in the last 24 hours.