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Global slowdown, crisis in Europe and the corporate sector that has become cautious seem to have cast a shadow on recruitment in IT-enabled services (ITeS), business process outsourcing, media and entertainment segments.
This segment recorded its first negative year-on-year growth.
Monthly studies conducted by Monster and Naukri, two online hiring facilitation firms, showed decline in the segment in December when compared with figures in the previous month and the same month previous year.
Monster Employment Index (a monthly barometer on hiring trends in India in various sectors) has captured a decline of 7 per cent in December compared to hiring in the corresponding month in 2010.
Sluggish sentiment
Mr Hitesh Oberoi, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Info Edge India (which promotes naukri.com), said there had been sluggishness in hiring sentiment towards the end of 2011 because of uncertain economic environment and festival season.
“Most firms had adopted a cautious optimistic wait-and-watch approach. We expect a similar trend in the first quarter of this year,” he said.
The monthly index of Monster culls out job opportunities from a large representative selection of online job sites, including Monsterindia.com.
The index for IT and BPO segment fell to 111 in December from 119 during the comparable period. Media and entertainment industry too, registered a decline of 13 per cent as the index dipped to 104 from 119.
The other sectors that witnessed a slide included printing and packaging (-14 per cent), Government sector (-15 per cent), logistics and transportation (-18 per cent).
According to Naukri, hiring in IT (software) declined by 13 per cent and that of ITeS by 20 per cent.
Growth sectors
It, however, doesn't mean that there is slump in hiring activity. Mr Sanjay Modi, Managing Director of Monster.com (India, Middle East, South East Asia), said that hiring in agri and allied sector, real estate and FMCG reported double-digit growth rate in the month.
City-wise break-up
Geographically, Hyderabad and Vadodara witnessed decline of 3 per cent and 4 per cent, respectively, as the index fell to 110 (113) and 109 (114) year-on-year. Coimbatore topped growth in hiring with 13 per cent, followed by Kochi with 11 per cent and Bangalore 10 per cent.
TeamLease view
TeamLease Services, a staffing services company, has a different point of view.
Responding to a query on whether slowdown and Euro Zone crisis impacted hiring, particularly in IT, BPO, media and entertainment sectors, Ms Madhubala Vaidyanathan, General Manager of TeamLease, said it impacted hiring only at senior management level only.
“At other lower levels hiring is still on in those sectors,” she said.
“Next two months it is going to be very slow. Only replacements are being hired. Hiring is predicted to improve in the next quarter,” she added.
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