mangaluru with corporate india placing most energies on rationalising costs including the wage costs and trying to deleverage its balance sheet the hiring outlook in the private sector is expected to stay muted till beginning of fiscal 201819 an assocham assessment based on its feedback from members has indicated the focus right now is how to deleverage consolidate exit from noncore businesses and achieve a lean and mean balance sheets going forward at least in the next quarter and a half the corporates would be busy improving their margins and reducing their debt costs even as the top line growth may take a back seat said the paper under these circumstance the fresh hiring prospects do not look bright maybe for the two quarters however things should look up in the next fiscal the paper noted the wage cost control would remain a key area of priority in the short term it noted that most of the churning is taking place in telecom financials including private sector banks nonbanking finance companies information technology realty and infrastructure significantly as the psu banks would also bring down their employee cost to their operation ratio post recapitalisation by the government the fresh hiring may also come down there as wellassocham secretary general d s rawat said though the moodys upgrade has given a sentiment boost the next two quarters would be challenging for the private sector but things would then improve and some of the pain points of the present like high debt slow consumer demand should ease from april 2018 in any case barring any untoward event the fiscal 201819 would be better than the current financial year in fact the boom in the stock market though being triggered by a huge liquidity play is also reflective of the uptick in the economic growth going forward the market is at ease even with higher valuations riding on the hopes of a pickup the gst related problems should be settled in the next few months the optimism also stems from india s sound macro indicators like moderate inflation stability in foreign exchange robust foreign exchange reserves and an improving trend line in exports however a thing to watch would be crude oil prices which could be a spoiler if they move up significantly from the present level some of the issues relating to agriculture like price fluctuations for the crops and farmers vulnerability are likely to be addressed in the coming budget with a focus on the rural landscape