Indian Job Market Upbeat Despite Macro Headwinds
Companies have been hiring regularly and the pace is almost on par with what the country had prior to the Covid-19 pandemic
India’s job market appears to have seen the worst as recent research suggests that companies are quite upbeat about their hiring plans for the second quarter of fiscal 2022 in spite of major macroeconomic headwinds such as growing inflation, the rising cost of funds as well as some global geopolitical tensions.
The Teamleas Employment Outlook Report pegs the hiring intent of companies at its highest levels since the Covid-19 pandemic, which should be welcome news for the federal government which has been facing flak over what critics called “jobless growth” for more than twenty-four months and more.
Teamlease has covered more than 900 small, medium and large enterprises across 23 sectors and 14 cities for the survey.
According to the survey while 61% of the companies say they have an intend to hire for white collar and blue collar jobs in the second quarter of the fiscal 2022, the hiring intent itself is up by 7% from the previous quarter. On an annual basis, the intent is substantially more than the 38% that was recorded in the second quarter of fiscal 2021.
The report said company executives felt positive about short-term indicators that include mobility, pent-up demand and rise in consumption across some sectors. In addition, the growing talent-supply mismatch and the high levels of attrition in certain industries is also prompting enterprises to stack up their hiring funnel.
The second quarter also coincides with the festive season that results in consumer demand growth, which translates into a similar spike in blue-collar jobs. Finding the right talent at the right time continues to be a challenge as attrition levels are at double digits in several industries that include healthcare, IT and pharma.
From a geographic perspective, the metro cities and tier-1 cities led the hiring spree with the highest intent of 89% while Bengaluru, Chennai and Mumbai emerged as leaders with 95%, 87% and 83% topping the cities with highest hiring intent.
IT leads the sectors in the hiring intent, with 98% companies planning to hire, followed by educational services (91%), e-commerce (89%), healthcare and pharmaceutical (88%), telecom (84%), essential retail (75%), FMCG (73%), knowledge process outsourcing (70%), logistics (70%) and financial services (68%).