The Indian job market bounced back to its pre-festive levels in November. The Naukri JobSpeak index, the country’s premier job index, emerged at 3106 for November, up from 2455 in October, registering a 27% M-O-M growth and 43% Y-O-Y growth. While the overall picture looks healthy at a monthly level due to post-festive recovery, a deeper analysis at the sector level reveals mixed trends compared to the boom times of the first half of this year that witnessed high growth in hiring activity.
Mixed trends observed across sectors
The Insurance sector continued its dream run registering 42% growth in new jobs created compared to the monthly average for the first half of the year. Sectors such as Banking (+34%), Real Estate (+31%), Oil (+24%), Travel & Hospitality (+20%), and Auto (+14%) also continued their upward trend in hiring, while Pharma, BPO, and Telecom remained flattish.
Unsurprisingly, hiring in the IT sector declined by 8% compared to the monthly average for the first half of the year. The dip was particularly prominent in startup hiring. However, the small magnitude of the dip confirms the resilience of the Indian job market. Furthermore, in sync with the recent slowdown in the Ed-tech and retail space, hiring in the education sector declined by 6% while hiring in the retail sector declined by 7%.
Metros and emerging cities continue to grow in hiring trends
Amongst large metros, Delhi-NCR led the charts with a 20% growth in new jobs compared to the monthly average for the first half of the year. The pattern is similar for Mumbai, Kolkata, and Chennai where new jobs grew by 17%, 10%, and 8%, respectively. On the other hand, metros with a greater inclination towards the IT sector such as Hyderabad, Bangalore, and Pune exhibited a flat job market with growth of -1%, -5% and 2%, respectively.
Amongst non-metros, Ahmedabad outshone with 33% growth, followed by Vadodara at 23%, Jaipur at 15%, and Coimbatore at 8% growth, while Kochi and Chandigarh remained stagnant.
Demand for senior-level professionals recorded double-digit growth
The long-term demand for professionals across all experience levels showed stability. A high growth of 21% was observed for senior professionals with more than 12 years of experience. The growth for jobs requiring 8-12 years of experience also rose by 11%. The hiring was flat for junior talent with less than 2 years of experience.
Commenting on the report, Pawan Goyal, Chief Business Officer, Naukri.com said, “The strong recovery in overall hiring activity post-festive season reaffirms the resilience of the Indian job market which is now multi-sectoral and hence balanced as well as mature. Minor isolated dips in a few sectors do corroborate hiring corrections and some cautious sentiment in the industry. However, the fact that sectors like real estate, insurance, and banking are showing double-digit growth should give us a lot of confidence that the Indian job market is so far holding its own despite some turbulence at the global level.”
