Hiring activity in India is at a whopping 89%, when it comes to year-on-year growth, in August 2021 when compared to August 2020, according to the Naukri JobSpeak Index. Another heartening aspect for the jobs market is that hiring activity in August 2021 has surpassed pre-pandemic levels in August 2019 by 24%.
The IT software sector displayed resilience in the after-effects of the second wave of the pandemic and grew by 79% in Aug '21 over a stable period in Aug’19. The education /teaching sector 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,” the report noted. But in contrast to the situation in August 2020 when lockdown regulations were still not relaxed, the sector has picked up in hiring by 134% in August 2020.
As major industries are on the road to recovery, hiring for certain roles, too, has picked up with increased jobseeker movement across the market, according to the report. Hiring for HR /admin at 169% and IT-software roles at 158% has gone up significantly in August 2021 over August 2020 among others.
The demand for senior professionals with 8-12 years of experience saw the maximum increase of 110% in August 2021 vs August 2020. 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 six 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%), the report stated. 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, the report noted.
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 data is compiled from the website where jobs posted by clients on Naukri.com are considered. However, it does not cover gig employment, hyperlocal hiring, or campus placement. The report shows hiring trends across industry sectors, geography, experience level, and functional areas.
“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 organisations,” said Pawan Goyal, Chief Business Officer, Naukri.com.