This year, August has witnessed a dip in hiring activity across sectors, functional areas and cities indicating that employers are cautious in recruiting as economic uncertainties and inflationary pressure continue to weigh down their sentiment.

After remaining flat for five consecutive months, the Naukri Job Speak index has seen a 4 per cent dip in August 2012 when compared with July 2012.

“The overall recruitment market in the economy is very challenging and most recruiters are staffing smartly and are opting for replacement hiring instead of recruiting new members. However, hiring has severely been affected in sectors such as telecom, insurance and BPO,” said Hitesh Oberoi, Managing Director and CEO, Info Edge India.

Most industries which had forecast a steady hiring scenario in the beginning of the year, have now started seeing a dip in hiring numbers. The Construction and Engineering sector has seen the highest month-on-month dip with hiring activity going down by 13 per cent in August 2012 compared with July 2012.

Oil and Gas, BPO, Telecom and Auto Sectors saw recruitment levels dip within a range of 6 per cent and 9 per cent over the same time period. Both Software services and Insurance has seen about 2 per cent dips in hiring activity in August over July.

On the contrary, the banking sector has seen 12 per cent growth in recruitment activities over the last month probably because of increased hiring in the Public Banks category.

The demand for professionals in banking rose over the last one month with job index moving up by 20 per cent in August compared with July. On the contrary, the demand for Sales and ITeS professionals has fallen by 6 per cent during the same time period.

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