According to the latest report by Naukri JobSpeak, White-collar hiring activity in India appears to be bouncing back after the disruption caused by the second wave of the COVID pandemic in April.
The leading index on India’s hiring trends grew by 15% to 2,359 in June from 2,047 in May with improvement in hiring across several key industries. This comes after hiring activity went into a nosedive of 15% in April and then flattening out in May amid surging number of Covid 19 infections across the country and clampdowns in various states.
Sectors that were severely impacted by the lockdowns and other restrictions including retail, hospitality, and travel also showed growth during the month.
Jobs in the information technology sector and IT functional areas are at an all-time high, up by 52% from pre-Covid levels of June 2019 and 5% sequentially. Technology hiring has remained relatively insular to the effects of the pandemic, an impact of rapid digitization of Indian organisations. On a year-on-year basis, hiring in the IT-software sector grew 163% in June.
Data showed a substantial recovery of hiring activity in hotels/restaurants/airlines/travel (+87%) and retail (+57%) sectors in June from May.
“It is heartening to see sectors such as hospitality (+87%) and retail (+57%) responding positively after being impacted by the second Covid-19 wave,” said Pawan Goyal, Chief Business Officer, Naukri.com.
On a year-on-year basis, the hiring activity grew by 95% in June, indicating recovery, after being severely hit by lockdowns and the early impact of the pandemic.
Sectors such as insurance (+38%), banking/financial services (+29%), and pharma/biotech (+22%) have also shown recovery from their recent slump. Other sectors like FMCG (+22%), education/teaching (+15%), and BPO/ITES (+14%) saw a positive sequential upswing in June.
Double-digit growth in hiring activity in almost all regions after near negative growth last month indicates a uniform revival of the job market. Pune (+10%), Hyderabad (+10%), and Bangalore (+4%) maintained their recent uptrend as they continue to fulfill the demand for skilled personnel in the IT sector.
Other metro cities like Delhi/NCR and Kolkata, which were negatively impacted in May, have recorded a 26% and 24% growth respectively. Among the tier-II cities, Jaipur (+50%) and Vadodara (+29%) were the best performers, providing further hope to aspirational job seekers in these areas.
Hiring across all functional areas such as marketing, sales, business development, HR improved significantly.
Hiring for all experience bands increased as organisations began to augment their employee base to handle growth.
The 0-3 year’s band saw a growth of 22%, which is cause for cheer for younger job seekers, as against the negative growth in May. The movement of senior professionals was also robust, as the 13-16 years (+11%), 8-12 years (+8%) and 16+ years (+10%) categories witnessed double-digit growth.