SKS Microfinance Limited, the only listed microfinance company in the country, has secured employment for 248 displace employees following its collaboration with leading corporates and recruitment consultancies.

Last month, the crisis-hit company had announced its ‘painful’ decision of slashing 1,200 jobs and shutting down 78 branches in Andhra Pradesh, where the micro finance sector is going through a rough patch since the last one-and-a-half years.

The company had to write off Rs 1,120 crore in the last financial year after the Andhra Pradesh government came out with stringent laws to regulate micro lending. This followed a spate of suicides of borrowers allegedly due to coercive recovery practices by MFI agents.

In a press release on Monday, SKS said that the company had organised job fairs in Hyderabad and Vijayawada for all its displaced employees after providing them with training and reorientation. In all, 715 ex-employees of SKS registered for the job fairs.

Leading companies including Coromandel Fertilisers Limited, Genius Consultants, Reliance Life Insurance Company Limited, Smaat Aqua Technologies, Tikona Digital Networks, TeamLease Services and TMI Networks have participated in SKS’ job fairs.

“An additional 255 candidates have been shortlisted for various positions," the company said in the release, while claiming that SKS, perhaps, had created a global record by organising job fairs for laid-off employees on such a large scale.

“The initiative (job fairs) is driven by SKS’ unique philosophy of dovetailing social good into business goals as also fostering life-long relationships built on bedrock of trust, transparency and mutual benefit," said SKS senior executive vice-president Srinivas Reddy Vudumula.