The hiring activity in India is on a positive trajectory recording a year-on-year (YOY) growth of 89% in Aug’21 with the country’s premier index trending at 2673, as compared to Aug’20, according to Naukri JobSpeak. Another victory for the jobs market is that hiring activity in Aug’21 has surpassed pre-pandemic levels in Aug’19 by 24%.
Several sectors, led by IT, showcase promising growth in hiring compared to pre-pandemic levels
The IT Software sector displayed resilience to the after-effects of the pandemic, so much so that it grew by 79% in Aug’21 over a stable period in Aug’19. The Education/Teaching recorded a strong annual recovery growing by 102% in Aug’21 and has now surpassed hiring in Aug’19 by 34%. Similarly, other sectors that have now exceeded pre-COVID numbers in Aug’19 are Real Estate (15%), Telecom (13%), Medical/Healthcare (8%), Pharma/Biotech (7%), Insurance (6%), and BFSI (5%).
The ambiguous status of rules related to Travel and Hospitality has been an obstacle for the industry and the sector is still down by 53% in comparison to Aug’19. But in contrast to the situation in Aug’20 when lockdown regulations were still not relaxed, the sector has picked up in hiring by 134% in Aug’21.
Commenting on the report, Pawan Goyal, Chief Business Officer, Naukri.com said “With a fair share of setbacks in 2020, we can finally acknowledge a trend of overall recovery in the job market. While Jan-May’21 were still in the red compared to pre-pandemic numbers of 2019, we see a positive growth trend starting in June’21. IT continues to dominate hiring and industries such as Education, Telecom, BFSI and Insurance are bouncing back too. As a result of increased hiring, the requirement for HR/Admin professionals too has seen a substantial uptick indicative of growth plans across organizations.”
As major industries get on the track to recovery, hiring for certain roles too have picked up with increased jobseeker movement across the market. Hiring for HR/Admin and IT-Software roles has gone up significantly in Aug’21 over Aug’20 among others.
The demand for senior professionals with 8-12 years’ experience saw the maximum increase of 110% in Aug ‘21 Vs. Aug’20. Other experience bands such as 0-3 years (79%), 4-7 years (91%), and over 13 years (65%) also recorded commendable growth in the same period.
At a city level, the top 6 metros have grown by 39% on an average in Aug’21 Vs. pre-pandemic levels in Aug’19 led by IT hubs Bengaluru (66%), Hyderabad (61%), Pune (54%), and Chennai (30%). Delhi-NCR and Mumbai’s recovery has been slower in comparison, up by 16% and 4% respectively in the same period. In comparison, Tier-2 cities are experiencing a gradual recovery, cumulatively up by 10%, led by Ahmedabad (27%) and Chandigarh (23%). The impact of the lockdown in 2020 and resultant freeze in hiring adversely affected the metros which have now bounced back, annually growing by almost 2X in Aug’21 as compared to Tier 2 cities.
Methodology
The Naukri JobSpeak is a monthly Index that calculates and records hiring activity based on the job listings on Naukri.com website month on month. The objective of Naukri JobSpeak is to measure the hiring activity in various industries, cities, functional areas and experience levels. The data is compiled from the website wherein jobs posted by clients on Naukri.com are considered. July 2008 is taken as the base with an index value of 1,000 and the subsequent monthly index is compared with the data for July 2008. The report shows hiring trends across industry sectors, geography, experience level, and functional areas. More than 76,000 clients use Naukri.com, leading to the high reliability of data. The report does not cover gig employment, hyperlocal hiring or campus placement. Over a long period of time, Naukri JobSpeak could be impacted by factors like internet penetration, Naukri market share, Naukri pricing and job listing drives.
