Hiring activity for white-collar jobs dips 12% during Oct-Nov: Report

Mumbai: Hiring activity for white-collar jobs witnessed a 12 per cent on-year decline during October-November largely due to fall in recruitment trends in IT-Software, telecom and education sectors, a report said on Thursday.

White-collar recruitment during October-November declined by 12 per cent with 2,433 job postings, compared to 2,781 during the corresponding months in 2022, according to the Naukri JobSpeak Index.

The Naukri JobSpeak is a monthly Index representing the state of the Indian job market and hiring activity based on new job listings and job-related searches by recruiters on the resume database of Naukri.com.

While, telcom, education, retailing sectors witnessed 18 per cent, 17 per cent and 11 per cent decline, respectively, during October-November compared with the same months in 2022, sectors like hospitality, travel, auto and auto ancillary the hiring trend was stagnant, the report said.

Meanwhile, Oil and Gas sectors recorded 9 per cent increase in hiring in the October-November period compared to the last year, on the back of rapid expansion by energy companies and the setting up of new refineries across the country, the report noted.

Similarly, the Pharma sector registered a 6 per cent increase in new job offers in the October-November against the same months of 2022, it added.

The report further revealed that the insurance sector also saw positive momentum as hiring grew by 5 per cent in the October-November period, over the same period last year.

"It was encouraging to see core non-IT sectors like Oil and Gas, Pharma and Insurance growing at a healthy clip during a cluttered festive period. November's 1 per cent growth in IT vs October could be a much awaited positive sign, as we eagerly await next month's trends," Naukri.com Chief Business Officer Pawan Goyal said.

The overall hiring in the IT sector was 22 per cent lower in the October-November, compared to the same months last year, it noted.

However, despite witnessing substantial corrections in the first half of 2023, the sector reported a 1 per cent growth in November over October.

New job openings in AI-related fields like machine learning engineer and full stack data scientist increased by 64 per cent and 16 per cent respectively during the two months under review, compared to the year-ago period, the report said.

Meanwhile, when it came to cities the non-metros, once again, outperformed the metros in terms of hiring. Vadodara clocked a 9 per cent growth in new job offers in the last two-months against the same period of 2022, while Ahmedabad stayed flat.

Metros like Delhi NCR and Mumbai clocked negative growth of 12 per cent each, while the IT-focused cities of Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, and Pune recorded negative growth of 20 per cent, 18 per cent, 21 per cent, and 18 per cent in October-November compared to the same period of 2022.

The report also found that organisations continued to show preference for senior professionals in terms of hiring, a trend seen in most of 2023. Hiring for senior professionals with more than 16 years of experience went up by 26 per cent in the last two months against the same months of 2022.

While, for freshers, new offers recorded negative growth of 13 per cent in the last two-month over the same period last year, the report added.