White collar hiring in India witnessed a 16 per cent decline in December compared to the year-ago period due to cautious hiring sentiments in the IT, BPO, education, retail, and healthcare sectors, a report said on Tuesday.
"We observed marginal sequential growth of 2 per cent in December hiring activity compared to November, driven by non-IT sectors. However, the IT sector continued to be significantly impacted, pulling the overall index down by 16 per cent against last year, signalling a longer wait for a complete recovery in IT hiring," Naukri.com Chief Business Officer Pawan Goyal said, analysing the Naukri JobSpeak Index.
Sector-wise trends
The Naukri JobSpeak Index delineated declines in various sectors in December: BPO, education, retail, and healthcare experienced a 17 per cent, 11 per cent, 11 per cent, and 10 per cent reduction in job offerings, respectively, year-on-year.
The IT sector mirrored trends seen in the latter half of 2023, facing a 21 per cent decline in December compared to the same month in the previous year and a 4 per cent drop from November 2023. Despite this, specific roles like full-stack data scientist, IT infrastructure engineer, and automation engineer witnessed steady hiring in the cautious IT job market.
While the oil and gas sector didn't witness significant growth in new job offers in December 2023, it maintained a status quo compared to the same month in the previous year.
The report highlighted the hospitality sector's continuous growth momentum, witnessing a 4 per cent increase in hiring compared to December of the prior year. This growth was particularly prominent in Mumbai and Delhi-NCR, with senior professionals boasting over 16 years of experience being highly sought-after candidates.
In the pharma sector, December 2023 saw a 2 per cent uptick in hiring compared to the same period in 2022, with maximum growth observed in new job offers in Ahmedabad, Vadodara, and Mumbai.
Non-metro cities outshined metros in hiring for December 2023. Vadodara particularly exhibited a 3 per cent annual growth in new job offerings, surpassing the growth seen in metros. In contrast, cities like Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, and Kolkata experienced declines ranging from 16 per cent to 24 per cent in new job offers.
(With PTI inputs)
