Hiring is off to a good start in 2022, according to the Naukri JobSpeak index, which tracks job postings on the Naukri platform for different industry sectors, which recorded 41 per cent year on year growth in January 2022.
With a hiring spree across industries, the index was trending at 2716 in January 2022 vs 1925 in January 2021.
The upswing of hiring activity was observed in multiple sectors with IT-Software, Retail and Telecom leading the charts. Hiring in IT-Software grew 80 per cent y-o-y while Retail and Telecom recorded a 52 per cent and 48 per cent YoY growth, respectively.
Hiring in Banking/Financial Services/Broking and Education/Teaching/Training grew 31 per cent each.
“With the beginning of 2022, the hiring sentiment reflected a resilience to the third wave as the corporate world geared up for growth. Outpacing 2021, hiring activity saw strong growth signs in major sectors,” the report said.
An uptick in hiring trend compared with last year was also observed in sectors such as Pharma (29 per cent), Medical/Healthcare (10 per cent), Oil and Gas/Power (8 per cent), Insurance (8 per cent), FMCG (7 per cent), and Manufacturing (2 per cent). Auto/Auto Ancillary remained flat in January 2022 vs January 2021.
Metros outperform, led by tech hubs
Amid a growth in technology hubs, the upswing in hiring in IT-Software and BFSI sectors have enabled metro cities to outperform their tier- II counterparts in the Y-O-Y growth charts.
IT hubs of India i.e. Bengaluru (+79 per cent), Hyderabad (+66 per cent), and Pune (+63 per cent) recorded the highest growth in January 2022. Other metro cities like Mumbai (+58 per cent), Chennai (+54 per cent), Kolkata (41 per cent), and Delhi/NCR (+35 per cent) also witnessed a spike in the hiring trajectory.
Among the non-metros, Ahmedabad (+50 per cent) witnessed highest growth in January 2022, followed by Coimbatore (+43 per cent), Kochi (+27 per cent), Vadodara (+12 per cent) and Jaipur (+8 per cent).
Demand for senior professionals
Hiring grew across all experience bands with demand for senior professionals belonging to the 8-12 yrs (+48 per cent) experience bracket receiving maximum traction in January 2022 when compared to January 2021. Demand was also high for professionals in the 0-3 yrs (+37 per cent), 4-7 yrs (+42 per cent), 13-16 yrs (+46 per cent), and above 16 yrs (+31 per cent) brackets.
Pawan Goyal, Chief Business Officer, Naukri.com said, “2022 has started on a resilient note with hiring sentiment improving across all sectors and cities, despite the third wave. While we saw spurts of growth during the year 2021, the first month of this year has kicked off with a bang as industries across India are gearing up for growth and getting past the previous year.”