Hiring activity in India remained buoyant in December despite Omicron threat: Naukri.com survey

Hiring activity in India remained buoyant across sectors in December despite the highly contagious Omicron variant of the Coronavirus spreading at a rapid pace globally and across the country, according to the latest Naukri NSE 1.14 % JobSpeak Index report.

The report from the leading job site shows that 2021 ended with the Naukri JobSpeak Index at 1915, suggesting that the hiring activity in December was flat compared to a year ago as the festive year-end marked an upswing in hiring over last year across all major metros.

“As companies continue to press the pedal on their digital transformation journeys, the demand for certain functional areas and sectors will keep growing,” said Pawan Goyal, Chief Business Officer, Naukri.com.

The Naukri JobSpeak is a monthly index that calculates and records hiring activity based on the job listings of over 76,000 clients on Naukri.com website month-on-month. The report shows hiring trends across industry sectors, geography, and experience level.

ET earlier this week reported that hiring intent and ability of India Inc may not be dented in the New Year despite an exponential rise in cases of the highly infectious Omicron variant of the coronavirus since the past one week.

Economists, top company executives and job market experts told ET that the evidence globally so far is that each successive wave of the virus has lesser impact on economic activity and even if hiring plans are delayed by a month or so it will not be shelved.

According to the Naukri JobSpeak index top metro cities saw growth in hiring when compared with December last year. Hyderabad was on top at +12% y-o-y growth followed by Bangalore (+11%), Mumbai (+8%), Pune (+4%), and Chennai (+6). Delhi was flat and Kolkata de-grew by 3%.

Among the emerging cities, Ahmedabad (+21%) recorded the highest growth, led by IT, pharma, and banking. Barring Ahmedabad, other tier-2 cities such as Kochi (-29%), Coimbatore (-17%), Jaipur (-12%), and Chandigarh (-12%) have shown a dip in hiring activity in December.

Software & information technology (IT) sector continued to grow, up 8% year-on-year, while the real estate sector also grew 8%, hospitality grew 22%, retail was up 20% and education grew 12%. Other sectors that grew included BFSI (+3%) and advertising (+18%).

Sectors such as insurance (-19%), BPO (-14%), and FMCG (-12%) de-grew as they saw a decline in hiring activity in December this year over the same period last year.

Hiring for new jobbers and young professionals was steady in December as demand for freshers and professionals with 4-7 years of experience remained flat over last year. Demand was slightly affected for professionals in the 8-12 years (-4%) and 13-16 years (-9%) experience segments.