On Wednesday, Google announced the launch of its job-hunting app, Kormo Jobs, in India. The company plans to offer help to millions looking for entry-level jobs, and the app was launched in the south-east Asian country of Indonesia and neighbouring Bangladesh.
The Kormo Jobs app is Google’s alternative to fight Microsoft’s job-seeking app Linkedin. Job seeking is the second biggest market on the internet. With the launch of the app, Google wants to expand its hold on the market and push LinkedIn aside.
Google launched Kormo jobs in Bangladesh back in 2018. In Dhaka, the app successfully matched over 25,000 jobs in various sectors such as retail sales, delivery, and contact centre positions. Later, the company expanded its operations to Indonesia, which is one of the youngest job markets in the world.
Last year, the company made Korma services available in India under the brand’s jobs as a Spot on the payment app Google Pay. “Jobs will be available as a Spot on Google Pay to help job seekers find and prepare for entry-level positions that fit their needs,” said Caesar Sengupta, VP of Payments at Google.
After a year, the job spot was made available on the Google app, many companies such as Zomato and Dunzo have posted more than 2 million verified jobs on the app’s platform. Google is re-branding Job Spots on Google pay and launching a dedicated app for job seekers: Kormo Jobs.
“In the wake of the pandemic, the jobs landscape stands altered, with demand shifting to new services that require different sets of skills and experience. Businesses of all sizes face the challenges of the new normal, while job seekers are having to adapt to this shift quickly,” said Bickey Russell, regional manager and operations lead at Kormo Jobs.
“We are heartened to be able to play a helpful role in facilitating connections to impact lives for the better, including introducing important features like remote interviewing earlier this year to ensure social distancing,” he added.
The app helps its users to create a digital CV quickly and for free. A digital CV built on the app will update automatically as users find a job or enroll in training through the app. The Kormo app will display open job listings based in the city. The job opportunities listed on the app will reflect the seeker’s growing profile and skills.
Google has also partnered with employers of large corporations and medium and small enterprises to list their openings on the app so the seekers can apply directly. The company is in plans to continue to invest in order to bring new features to the app.
The current job market is looking for candidates with a new skill set and proficiency with new technologies. The Kormo app has an inbuilt ‘Learn tab’ where job seekers can access free training content in the form of articles, videos, and courses that are relevant and up-to-date.
Google’s step into the job hunt category could hurt the popular job-seeking app, LinkedIn. In the US, Google already launched a job search engine back in 2017. This has further expanded to many markets. The company is committed to expanding its operations in the job seeker sector.
Linkedin is the world’s biggest job-seeking platform. However, the platform is not very popular in emerging markets. In India, LinkedIn had over 24 million monthly active users on Android in July. Last year, during the same month, there were about 22 million active, according to the app Annie.
Google has over 400 million users in India. The pandemic hit LinkedIn as an organisation so hard that it had to cut over 960 jobs globally. This is mainly due to a decrease in hiring on the platform due to the coronavirus pandemic. Hiring is slowly picking up in phases but it will take more time to return back to the early level.
Meanwhile, in India, nearly 41 lakh youth have lost their jobs due to the COVID-19 pandemic according to a report by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Hiring is on the rise as the country is slowly recovering. This could be the best time for Google to launch an app like Kormo for job seekers to prevail in the market swiftly.