IT emerges as strongest job provider this year, hiring up 38%

The IT and software industry in India, which has been seeing a decline in the pace of its headcount addition in recent years, has shown a spurt of hiring activity this year, according to hiring site naukri.com.

According to a numbers crunched by India’s biggest classifieds job site, hiring in the IT sector saw a massive jump of 38% in February compared to the same month last year.

This is the second month of strong showing for the IT sector. January had seen a 36% jump.

“The IT – Software industry has been on a hiring spree in February 2019, making it one of the fastest growing industries,” Naukri said.

Southern cities led the sharp increase, with Hyderabad showing a 58% increase in IT & software-related hiring, followed by Chennai and Bengaluru with 48% and Mumbai with 32%.

The numbers are in contrast to the annual guidance by IT industry body Nasscom, which predicted a lackluster 7-9% increase in hiring for IT sector in FY 2019.

IT professionals were followed by HR professionals, whose area of specialization saw a 20% jump in hiring in February. Third in line was construction and engineering sectors, which saw an increase of 16% in hiring activities.

However, industries such as banking and financial services and oil and gas witnessed a dip in the hiring activity this month.

Overall, there has a been a 16% rise in hiring activities this month, the report said.

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Chennai topped the list of city-wise tally with 30% rise in recruitment, followed by Mumbai with 26%.

Sumeet Singh, CMO, Infoedge India Ltd, pointed out that the trends are largely in line with the forecast for the year, based on an early survey.

“Naukri’s latest hiring outlook survey with over 3,300 recruiters across the country had anticipated increased hiring, wherein 84% recruiters surveyed said that new jobs would be created, ” he stated.

Naukri.com, one of India’s leading e-recruitment sites, operates across 56 offices in 42 cities in India and overseas countries including Dubai, Riyadh, Abu Dhabi and Bahrain.