IT and Retail sectors record double-digit growth in hiring for the month of March: Naurki JobSpeak

The IT and Retail sectors have recorded a robust growth with the opening up of the economy, accompanied by fast adoption of data and digitization. This has helped companies stabilize from the effects of the pandemic and work towards their growth plans.

According to the Naukri JobSpeak Index for March 2021, the IT Software sector remains shielded and hiring continued to grow by +11% in the sector over February 2021. Interestingly, the Retail sector, which was severely impacted by the pandemic, is also seeing robust revival as sequential hiring in the sector saw an uptick of +15% in March 2021.

Key sectors such as Oil and Gas (+7%), Accounting/Taxation/Finance (+6%) and Telecom/ISP (+5%) showed an uptick in hiring in March 2021 vs. February 2021. On the other hand, sectors such as BPO/ITES (1%) and BFSI (1%) witnessed a flat sequential trend. With the second wave of COVID-19 underway, the Education/Teaching (-13%), FMGC (-10%) and Hotels/Airlines/Travel (-8%) sectors experienced a decline in sequential hiring in March 2021.

All six metros and key Tier-2 cities witnessed a sequential growth in hiring, barring Kolkata (-3%) and Vadora (-2%) that saw a slight decline in hiring. Within metros, Bengaluru and Mumbai led the sequential growth at +13% and +8% respectively, followed by Hyderabad (+7%) and Chennai (+6%). Ahmedabad registered the highest hiring growth of +13% amongst Tier-2 cities.

Pawan Goyal, Chief Business Officer at Naurki.com, said the overall hiring activity shows a robust growth of 23% in the first quarter of 2021 as compared to the Oct-Dec 2020 quarter. “The IT sector has been at the forefront of fuelling this growth and it is encouraging to see sectors like Retail and Accounting/Finance also showing promising recovery over the past few months.”

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Goyal pointed out that with the economy opening up, recruiters are ready to hire again and 83% confirmed this in  the latest Naukri Hiring Outlook survey.