Hiring activity in August up 14% y-o-y: Report

Hiring activity witnessed a 14 per cent year-over-year growth in August 2021, according to the Monster Employment Index.

The job analysis report by Monster.com , a Quess Company includes findings for August 2021, providing insights into the job market across industries, cities, functions and levels.

Data from the Index indicates that there has been a slight uptick in job posting activity in August 2021, with a one per cent increase compared to the previous month, July 2021. However, the overall job postings have improved by 14 per cent year-on-year (August 2021 vs August 2020), indicating a strong recovery in the pipeline.

Despite the impact of the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, job demand has recorded a sequential growth of 5 per cent in the last six months, as per the report.

Also read: Indian economy may grow at 7.2 per cent constrained by Covid-19: UNCTAD

Sekhar Garisa, CEO - Monster.com , a Quess company said, “With India recovering from the second wave of the pandemic, there has been positive stable growth in job postings in the month of August 2021. Moreover, with the imminent festive and seasonal demand, we expect hiring activity to flourish in the coming months, as we have already seen in the Textile and Manufacturing industries. The hiring landscape across metropolitan cities has also been consistently on the rise since May 2021, across sectors,” added Garisa.

Impact of uptick in festive demand

As for specific sectors, as of August 2021, online hiring demand witnessed a positive month-on-month growth in industries such as garments/ textiles/ leather, gems & jewellery (24 per cent), followed by production and manufacturing (8 per cent), oil/gas/petroleum/power (6 per cent), shipping/marine (4 per cent), and BPO/ITES (3 per cent) industries. “The surge in job postings could be attributed to the imminent festive season and seasonal hiring demands across industries. The Union Cabinet’s approval of the PLI scheme for textiles is expected to further boost growth in the sector,” the report said.

Travel and tourism (2 per cent) which witnessed massive m-o-m growth in July 2021, continues to show a positive outlook in August 2021.

However, industries such as engineering, cement, construction, iron/steel (-7 per cent), agro-based industries (-6 per cent), FMCG, food & packaged food (-5 per cent), and logistic, courier/ freight/ transportation (-4 per cent), after witnessing a minor improvement in July 2021, have witnessed a decline in job postings in August.

Based on a year-on-year (Aug 2021 vs Aug 2020) comparison, e-recruitment activity in IT- hardware, software (39 per cent), closely followed by shipping/marine (37 per cent), and telecom/ISP (36 per cent) industries have witnessed a strong growth. Other industries such as banking/ financial services, insurance (33 per cent), production and manufacturing (20 per cent), and retail (11 per cent) also show a positive uptick in y-o-y hiring demand. However, industries that were deeply impacted by the second wave of the pandemic such as travel and tourism and education continue to witness an annual decline. The former witnessed a 27 per cent decline in hiring demand while the latter recorded an 18 per cent decline.

Positive growth in metro cities

Metro cities continued to witness a positive growth in hiring activity while certain Tier II cities also recorded an increase in hiring activity.

In the month of August 2021, city trends have seen moderate month-on-month growth in job postings across Mumbai (3 per cent), Hyderabad (3 per cent), Chennai (3 per cent), and Coimbatore (2 per cent). However, cities which faired reasonably well in July such as Kochi (-4 per cent), Kolkata (-4 per cent), Chandigarh (-1 per cent), and Jaipur (-1 per cent) witnessed a monthly decline in job posting activity (Aug 2021 vs July 2021).

On a year-on-year basis (Aug 2021 vs Aug 2021), demand for talent continued grew in metropolitan cities such as Bangalore (59 per cent), Hyderabad (34 per cent), Pune (40 per cent), Chennai (37 per cent), Delhi-NCR (14 per cent), and Mumbai (16 per cent), largely driven by the IT- hardware, software industry. "The rapid growth of start-ups in metro cities and government initiatives such as Make-in-India have largely accounted for this growth,” the report said.

Among Tier II cities, Coimbatore (7 per cent) recorded a rise in hiring activity. Hiring activity was down 20 per cent y-o-y in Jaipur, 16 per cent in Kolkata, 11 per cent in Baroda, 6 per cent in Ahmedabad and one per cent Chandigarh.

Key roles

In a month-on-month comparison, data from the Index indicates that the marketing and communication (17 per cent) function witnessed the highest growth in job postings, largely observed in metro cities. Customer service (2 per cent), software, hardware, telecom (2 per cent), and hospitality and travel (1 per cent) functions witnessed moderate incline, while healthcare (0 per cent) and finance & accounts (0 per cent) showed muted growth as of August 2021 (Aug 2021 vs July 2021).

Online demand for professionals in software, hardware, telecom (50 per cent), senior management (35 per cent), marketing and communications (15 per cent) and finance and accounts (11 per cent) continues to witness a year-on-year increase in job postings (Aug 2021 vs Aug 2020).

While job postings for functional roles in customer service (-27 per cent), healthcare (-13 per cent), sales & business development (-9 per cent), and hospitality & travel (-4 per cent) witnessed a maximum year-on-year decline in August 2021.

While job postings for mid-senior level profiles witnessed the highest month-on-month growth in August. Hiring demand for mid-senior level roles (7-10 years) witnessed optimistic month-on-month (Aug 2021 vs July 2021) growth at 3 per cent, closely followed by intermediate roles (4-6 years) and entry-level roles (0-3 years) at 2 per cent and 1 per cent respectively. Hiring for top management professionals (over 16 years), however, witnessed a decline (-2 per cent) month-on-month.

In comparison to August 2020, August 2021 data shows that job postings for top management level professionals have witnessed the highest growth at 70 per cent. Mid-senior level (30 per cent), intermediate level (27 per cent), and senior level (17 per cent) also witnessed a positive uptick. However, entry-level profiles witnessed only a slight year-on-year growth of 4 per cent (Aug 2021 vs Aug 2020).