Around 42.06 per cent of the companies have put the estimated rise in manpower strength in their organisations between 1 and 15 per cent, the survey by Genius Consultant Ltd said.

The survey conducted among 881 corporate houses included the likes of Siemens India, CESC, BOSCH, Glaxo, TIL Ltd, Barclays, Delloite, Edelweiss, Shapoorji & Pallonji, Lawrence & Mayo, Maruti Suzuki and Bharti Airtel. 

The projected figure of recruitment of male and female candidates stood at 57.77 per cent and 42.23 per cent, respectively, in 2018-19, the survey said. 

Around 21 per cent of the companies were of the view that the major candidate sourcing avenue will be through job portals and lesser through advertisements, it said. 

According to the survey, 53.17 per cent of the companies said that 1-5 years of work experience levels will bag the most opportunities in the financial year 2018-19.

A sizeable 68.25 per cent of the respondents emphasised that background checks remained crucial before recruiting a candidate. 

The pan-India survey was undertaken over a period of two and half months beginning from the first week of March this year.

The bank had reported a net profit of Rs 2,814.82 crore in the corresponding period of 2016-17. 

Sequentially, the loss widened from Rs 2,416.37 crore in the third quarter ended December 2017.

Total income during the January-March quarter was up at Rs 68,436.06 crore, from Rs 57,720.07 crore in the same period a year earlier, the bank said in a regulatory filing. 

Gross NPAs, as a percentage of gross loans, jumped to 10.91 per cent from 6.90 per cent at March-end 2017.

Net NPAs rose to 5.73 per cent of the net advances compared to 3.71 per cent last year. 

Stock of SBI was trading 5.2 per cent up at Rs 257.85 on BSE in afternoon trade.

It kept the ratings outlook as stable but also downgraded the bank's baseline credit assessment (BCA) and Adjusted BCA to b1 from ba3.

"The downgrade of the bank's BCA and ratings reflects the negative impact of the discovery of a number of fraudulent transactions on the bank's standalone profile, particularly its capital position," the rating agency said in a report here today. 

The downgrade also reflects the weak internal controls and processes of the bank, given that the fraudulent transactions were undetected for a number of years. 

In February, the bank announced that it had discovered some fraudulent and unauthorised transactions amounting to Rs 11,390, billion (USD 1.7 billion). 

Based on the bank's subsequent announcements, PNB's total exposure to these transactions amounts to Rs 14,400 crore (USD 2.2 billion). 

Following the announcement of the fraudulent transaction, Moody's initiated a review of the bank's ratings on February 20, 2018, which was completed now. 

The rating agency expects that the lender will receive capital support from the government and that it will be able to release some capital from the sale of its non-core assets such as its real estate holdings as well as a partial stake sale in its listed housing finance subsidiary, PNB Housing Finance. 

"Nevertheless, these sources will unlikely prove sufficient to restore the bank's capitalisation to levels before the fraudulent transactions were discovered," the report said. 

The report estimates that PNB will require external capital of about Rs 12,000-13,000 crore in FY2019 to meet the minimum Basel III CET1 ratio of 8 per cent by March 2019, including a capital conservation buffer. 

This estimate takes into account the ageing basis provisions for the non-performing loans (NPLs), the deferred provisions for the fraud, investment losses and employee benefits expenses as well as a reduction in risk-weighted assets, it said. 

The report said while the government has budgeted an infusion of Rs 65,000 crore into 21 public sector banks, it expects that the large capital shortfall will negatively impact PNB's ability to grow its loan book over the next year. 

The rating agency, however, said it will downgrade PNB's BCA and ratings if the bank's capitalisation worsens beyond what it's expects in this ratings action. 

Any indication that government support to the bank has diminished will also lead to a ratings downgrade, it added.

Jiang Yang, vice-chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission on Sunday said that the development of direct financing, especially equity financing, would help ease high rates of leverage among enterprises and boost their ability to invest and engage in research and development.

Speaking at a forum, Jiang said that China attached great importance to the development of private equity investment funds, and was also committed to the further opening-up of its capital markets.

Earlier the CSRC on Friday said that exchanges need to pay close attention to debt risks following a recent spate of corporate defaults.

So far this year, 10 issuers have defaulted on principal or interest payments on 17 bonds worth a total of 14.6 billion yuan, ratings agency Fitch said last week. In all of 2017, there were 18 defaults involving 39.3 billion yuan.

On Friday, the Kingtec Steel Corporation in northwest China’s Xinjiang region said it was facing bankruptcy and would be unable to pay off its debts, including a 550 million yuan bond issued in 2013.

China witnessed a massive surge in the national debt load this year.The 7.5 per cent increase is almost double the rate in the previous year. Since the global financial crisis in 2008, China's debt as a percentage of gross domestic product has grown more than 10 percent a year on average, says International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Earlier in December last year, the Chinese government called for a reasonable credit growth in 2018 to tackle the debt load.