Hiring activity picks up slightly in March
The retail sector, which was severely impacted by the pandemic, is also seeing robust revival, with sequential hiring activities seeing an uptick of 15% last month
Mumbai: Hiring activities rose marginally with job listings rising to 2,436 in March compared to February this year, according to a report. The increase of three per cent in job listings on a month-on-month basis was mainly led by IT-software and retail sectors. In February, the job listings stood at 2,356.
As per the latest Naukri JobSpeak Index, given the wave of digital transformation, the IT-software sector remains shielded and hiring continued to grow by 11% in March.
The retail sector, which was severely impacted by the pandemic, is also seeing robust revival, with sequential hiring activities seeing an uptick of 15% last month, as per the report.
The Naukri JobSpeak is a monthly Index that calculates and records hiring activity based on the job listings on Naukri.com website.
Key sectors such as oil and gas (7%), accounting/ taxation/ finance (6%) and telecom/ ISP (5%) showed an uptick in hiring in March compared to February.
On the other hand, sectors such as BPO/ITES (1%) and BFSI (1%) witnessed a flat sequential trend.
With the second wave of COVID, education/ teaching (13%), FMCG (10%) and hotels/ airlines/ travel (8%) sectors experienced a decline in sequential hiring in March, the report said.
All six metros and key tier-II cities witnessed sequential growth in hiring in March, except Kolkata (3%) and Vadodara (2%) that saw a slight decline in hiring.
Ahmedabad registered the highest hiring growth of 13% amongst tier-II cities in March compared to February, the report noted.
The demand for professionals in marketing/ advertising (10%) and HR/ administration (8%) roles also saw an uptick in March, while the demand in sales/BD (6%) roles saw a sequential decline.
Hiring for professionals with 4-7 years’ and 8-12 years’ experience saw the highest sequential growth of 6% in March this year. However, leadership hiring (those having over 16 years’ experience) declined by 3% last month compared to February.
On a year-on-year basis, there was a notable growth of 25% in hiring in March compared to the same month last year, led by sectors including IT-software, medical/ hospital and retail, the report said.
Job opportunities in the IT-software (42%), medical /hospital (33%) and retail (24%) sectors showed year-on-year growth. However, hospitality and travel sectors registered a decline of 11 per cent in hiring in March compared to the year-ago period.