October-December hiring intent at 18-month peak in India: Report

"There is an overarching high sense of positivity in the Indian white- and blue-collar job market," said Rituparna Chakraborty, Executive Vice President of TeamLease Services. “This optimism is panning out across sectors and job types in urban as well as rural areas. The back-to-office plans of companies are also an indicator that businesses are not worried about any major disruption and even if there is another wave, they claim to be better prepared and more confident to hire for immediate and future growth."

Region wise, the intent to hire is strongest in Bangalore at 67 percent. This is followed by Delhi (59 percent), Hyderabad (53 percent), Pune (46 percent) and Chennai (45 percent).

Among the sectors, IT shows the strongest intent to hire with 69 percent, followed by educational services (64 percent), healthcare and pharmaceuticals (61 percent), FMCG (59 percent) and e-commerce (57 percent).

The intent to hire for the entry and junior level jobs stood at 34 percent each, followed by senior level (27 percent) and mid-level (24 percent).

Growing consumer sentiment has propped up demand for sales roles, which showed the strongest intent to hire at 58 percent among all functional areas. This is followed by the IT sector (43 percent), marketing (40 percent), engineering (37 percent), blue-collar (40 percent) and human resources (14 percent).

Some of the key factors influencing the uptick in hiring include vaccination, onset of the festive season, and back-to-office and hybrid plans, the report said.

“The blistering pace of vaccination is helping companies make the call that recovery may be sustainable,” Sachchidanand Shukla, Chief Economist, Mahindra Group told The Economic Times. “People are also taking heart from the fact that the number of infections has been mostly under control over the past few weeks.”

Besides, robust economic growth indicators, revival in rural sentiment, performance-linked incentive (PLI) schemes in some industries and a sharp bounce-back in contact-intensive services have also added to the need for more manpower, said the report.

"Robust GST & e-way bill generation, recovery of the manufacturing PMI, increase in business activities, improvement in the industrial and service sector activity, rise in demand across sectors and the ramping up inoculation are not only positively impacting the economy but also the job scenario," said Chakraborty.

In September, Manpower-Group Employment Outlook Survey also indicated an uptrend in hiring in the October-December quarter.

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