Hiring activity on a recovery path after Covid second wave; grows 15% in June: Naukri JobSpeak

Hiring activity by Indian organisations is bouncing back after the disruption caused by the second COVID wave in April, according to the latest Naukri JobSpeak report. The country’s premier index on India’s hiring trends grew by 15% in June’21 vs. May’21, going up to 2,359 in June from 2,047 in May. The month witnessed improvement in hiring across several key industries as well as functional areas. This is an indication of resilience and recovery of hiring activity across the country, especially after the nosedive of 15% in April’21 and then flattening out in May’21, primarily due to the pandemic.




IT sector continues its upwards surge with 5% increase in June

Buoyed by the demand from Indian organisations to use IT to overcome business challenges, the IT-Software/Software Services sector grew 5% in June’21 compared to May’21. Not only did this sector continue its recent surge of 14% in May’21, but achieved an all-time high growth of 52% , as compared to pre-COVID levels in June’19. Tech hiring has remained relatively insular to the effects of the pandemic, an impact of rapid digitization of Indian organisations.

Sectors severely hit by restrictions show growth: Retail, Hospitality and Travel

There has been a substantial recovery of hiring activity in Hotels/Restaurants/Airlines/Travel (+87%) and Retail (+57%) sectors in June’21 vs May’21, thanks to the relaxation of pandemic-related restrictions on movement. 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 positive sequential upswing in June’21 vs May’21.

Almost all metros record double-digit growth in hiring; Jaipur (50%) and Vadodara (29%) perform best

A double-digit growth in hiring activity in almost all regions after near negative growth last month indicates 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 ‘21, 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.

As businesses rebuild, hiring improves across all functional areas; freshers back in demand

In what may be seen as a response to growth and rebuilding by Indian organisations, hiring across all functional areas improved significantly. Roles in Marketing / Advertising / MR / PR (+39%), Sales / BD (+32%), HR/Administration (+31%) and Banking / Insurance (+31%) grew the most. Roles in Production/Quality (+22%) and Accounts/Finance (+20%) also saw a sequential rise in hiring activity in the last one month. The Naukri JobSpeak index reports a 4% increase in demand for tech professionals as IT companies continue to bulk-hire talented professionals in 2021. Hiring for Teaching roles (+9%) also saw growth in June’21 vs May’21.

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Hiring for all experience bands increased as organisations began to augment their employee base to handle growth. The 0-3 years band saw a growth of 22%, which is cause for cheer for younger job seekers, as against the negative growth in May ‘21. Similarly, 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.

Commenting on the report, Pawan Goyal, Chief Business Officer, Naukri.com said, “The strong recovery of the hiring sector at 15% in June ‘21, close on the heels of a decline in May ‘21 is encouraging. It is heartening to see sectors such as Hospitality (+87%) and Retail (+57%) responding positively after being impacted by the second Covid-19 wave.” Speaking on the performance of the IT sector, he adds, “Hiring in this sector has seen a 5% sequential month-on-month growth and more than 52% increase from June’19.”

Y-O-Y Hiring Deep-dive | June’21 Vs June’20

The hiring activity grew by 95% in June’21 as compared to June ‘20, indicating recovery, after being severely hit by lockdowns and the early impact of the pandemic.

Y-O-Y hiring in the IT-Software sector grew +163% in June’21 vs. June’20. Sectors such as Retail (+114%) and Telecom/ISP (+124%) which were still recovering from the first COVID wave and subsequent lockdown at the same time last year, also witnessed good Y-O-Y growth in June’21. Hiring has also picked up in the Insurance (+87%), Banking/Financial Services (+74%), Pharma/Biotech (+38%) and Teaching/Education (38%) sectors as compared to June’20.

Within metros, Y-O-Y hiring was led by IT hubs including Hyderabad (+155%), Bengaluru (+149%) Pune (+145%). The hiring activity in Chennai (+135%) and Delhi/NCR (+102%) recorded relatively lesser growth during the same period owing to the second wave of the pandemic. Smaller cities saw slower overall growth as compared to metros with Ahmedabad (+164%), Vadodara (+84%) and Jaipur (+61%) leading hiring during the same period.

Professionals in the HR/Admin (+194%) and Banking/Insurance (+167%) domains witnessed significantly high demand in June’21, whereas IT-Software (+165%) and Travel/Airlines (+113%) professionals were also highly sought after as per the Y-O-Y hiring trends. Hiring in the 8-12 years (+116%) and 4-7 years (+102%) experience bands saw maximum traction in June ’21 vs. June’20.

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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.

About Naukri.com

Naukri.com, India’s No. 1 job site and the flagship brand of Info Edge introduced the concept of e-recruitment in India. Since its inception in 1997, Naukri.com has seen continuous growth while outperforming its competitors in every sphere. Info Edge was the first internet company to be listed in India. The brand enjoys a timeshare of over 96% across Desktop, Mobile and App as per Similar Web. Naukri.com is a recruitment platform that provides hiring-related services to corporates/recruiters, placement agencies and job seekers in India and overseas. It offers multiple products like Resume Database Access, listings and Response Management Tools. With more than 5,40,000 jobs at any point and over 69 million CVs, Naukri.com services over 59,500 unique clients. The company operates 77 offices in 47 cities in India and overseas offices in Dubai, Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, Qatar and Bahrain.