India sees December hiring activity up by 14%: Naukri JobSpeak Index

The hiring activity in India has increased by 14 per cent in December 2020 compared to November 2020, stated Naukri JobSpeak Index on Thursday.

In December 2020 hiring activity witnessed a decline of 10 per cent as against December 2019.

Pawan Goyal, Chief Business Officer, Naukri.com said, "2020 was a year of challenges and hiring across key industries bore the brunt of the pandemic."

"This improvement is led by sectors such as IT, BPO/ITES, medical and pharma. Key sectors like hospitality, travel, auto and retail are still bouncing back and the sequential numbers reassure us of robust recoveries in 2021. As we look forward to a brighter year ahead, the overall hiring sets in the right direction for the closing month," added Goyal.

When it comes to sector-wise impact, the hospitality/travel sector has been hit the most with a 60 per cent decline in hiring followed by power/infrastructure/energy sector (39 per cent), retail (30 per cent), telecom/ISP (25 per cent) and accounting/taxation/finance (20 per cent) in December 2020 year-over-year.

According to Naukri JobSpeak Index, the medical/healthcare sector witnessed a positive growth of 11 per cent due to macro conditions. Further, the hiring trend in pharma/biotech sector remained less impacted with only 1 per cent fall. Similarly, the increased digitisation has helped industries like IT-software stay afloat with just 2 per cent plunge in hiring activity.

The demand for professionals in banking/insurance, pharma/biotech/medical and IT software observed a positive growth of 14 per cent, 14 per cent and 6 per cent respectively in December 2020 year-over-year.

On the contrary, recruitment for professionals in sales/BD, HR/admin, marketing/advertising and accounts/finance saw a decline of 24 per cent, 22 per cent, 18 per cent and 17 per cent respectively.

Hiring for professionals in ticketing/travel/airlines, hotel/restaurant and teaching/education witnessed a steep decline of 73 per cent, 66 per cent and 31 per cent respectively.

On city-wise analysis, metro cities like Mumbai, Delhi/NCR and Kolkata witnessed a decline in hiring trends by 25 per cent, 18 per cent and 13 per cent respectively in December 2020 as against December 2019.

IT hubs like Bengaluru, Pune and Hyderabad demonstrated a plunge in hiring activity just by 1 per cent, 2 per cent and 5 per cent respectively.

Among tier-II cities, Chandigarh and Jaipur recorded a positive growth of 8 per cent and 2 per cent respectively. On the other hand, Ahmedabad and Vadodara were highly impacted with a decline of 26 per cent and 45 per cent respectively.

( With inputs from ANI )