Office and professional work jobs in the country increased by 14 percent year-on-year in the month of October. The highest growth in demand for such jobs was recorded in the manufacturing sector. The ‘Employment Jobspeak Index’, which measures hiring trends, rose to 2,836 in October from 2,480 in the same period a year ago. Hiring activities in the manufacturing sector increased by 39 percent year-on-year. The index is based on new job advertisements on employment portal ‘Naukri.com’ and search activities of recruiters in its resume database. This also includes free job ads.
Demand for AI skills
Hitesh Oberoi, managing director and CEO of InfoAge, said the increase in recruitment is partly due to the weak base created by the festive season last year. Apart from this, efforts to increase production capacity have also increased employment opportunities. Demand for artificial intelligence (AI)-related skills is also strong.
Hyderabad contributed the highest 15 per cent to the recruitment activities of metropolitan cities. After this, Pune contributed 14 percent and Delhi-National Capital Region (NCR) 13 percent. Recruitment activities in Bengaluru and Mumbai grew by 12 per cent year-on-year each, while Chennai registered an 11 per cent growth. At the same time, recruitment activities in Kolkata remained stagnant.
Among the small and emerging cities, Gandhinagar saw the highest increase in recruitment activities at 48 percent. This was followed by an increase of 36 percent in Surat, 34 percent in Raipur, 30 percent in Vadodara, 29 percent in Ranchi, 26 percent in Jaipur and 23 percent in Ahmedabad. According to the report, four of the seven fastest growing emerging cities in terms of office work related recruitment activity are from Gujarat.
How much increase in which sector?
According to the report, the FMCG sector overall grew by a meager 6%, but hiring for manufacturing jobs increased by 40% and for procurement jobs by 20%. At the same time, recruitment for sales and business development in FMCG declined by 5%. In terms of white-collar hiring last month, IT/software services was one of the slowest growing sectors with a growth of 5%.
Across industries, hiring for jobs such as software engineering and quality assurance increased by just 1%. Demand for technology talent is becoming concentrated primarily in specialized AI roles and GCCs (Global Capability Centers), while general software hiring remains steady.
Among metro cities, Hyderabad leads in terms of white-collar hiring with a growth of 15%, followed by Pune (14%) and Delhi-NCR (13%). Bengaluru and Mumbai recorded an increase of 12% each, while it was 11% in Chennai. No change was observed in Kolkata.
