Reliance Mobile which has increased its VAS pitch off late, is foraying into another new service on its R-World VAS platform. The company in tie-up with Babajob.com will offer job information and update services to the blue-collar segment.

Among other features, the new services has a rural flavour to it as the service will offer rural users information about jobs in their districts as well as higher paying jobs in nearby cities.

“This is is a scalable, replicable solution which will connect computer/voice-based employers to job-seekers with mobile phones. We see major usage of this service in Tier 3 and rural locations. This service will enable informal job seekers to find lucrative employment opportunities at a click of a single button. We are currently launching this job search service in 5 languages - Hindi, Telugu, Kannada, Tamil & English. We plan to go live with additional languages within the next one month,” said Mr Krishna Durbha, Head – VAS, Reliance Communications.

Through this service, Reliance Mobile is targeting a vast base of job seekers who are not computer literate as well as not qualified for jobs that get advertised on well-known job portals.  These are typically low ARPU customers who would see rational sense to pay for mobile services that can improve their livelihoods. Babajob had undertaken a pilot project in Karnataka. The pilot project resulted in 2.4% conversions from over 100,000 low-ARPU users.

Sean Blagsvedt, CEO of Babajob.com adds, “We are extremely excited to partner with Reliance Mobile to bring their customers access to our growing database of informal sector jobs and candidates. Our vision is create an efficient marketplace for employers to connect with blue-collar labor and help the vast middle and lower classes of India connect with better job opportunities; this partnership with Reliance represents a giant step towards making that vision a reality for the over 80 million Reliance Mobile customers in India,” said Sean Blagsvedt, CEO of Babajob.com.

The tie-up is targeting a 138 million big informal job market in India which is expected to surge to 220 million by 2012. The mobile job search market for this segment is estimated to reach Rs 6,500 crore by 2012. Reliance Mobile is targeting 12 % share of this market.

Recently Babajob.com had tied up with Airtel and Idea for a similar service.