Thanks to the combined effect of the festival season and overall caution about India’s slowing economic growth, hiring dipped to a year-low in October this year.
According to the Job Speak Index compiled by India’s largest recruitment site Naukri.com, recruitment activity levels were at 921 points in October, a fall of 16% from hiring levels in September.
The figure is lower than the lowest point for the Index during this year — 969 for January; as well as the figure for the same month a year ago – 949. It is, however, customary to see a dip in October hirings, Naukri said.
“However, this year hiring activity has been exceptionally low in Oct as most employers seem to be adopting a more cautious approach towards hiring,” said Hitesh Oberoi, CEO and MD, Info Edge, the firm that owns Naukri.
The cut-back in hiring is seen as partly the effect of the dip caused by the festival season as well as the overall dampening of sentiment in the Indian industry due to rising interest rates and inflation and the resulting slower growth.
Despite protests from the industry, the Reserve Bank of India has been relentlessly raising the cost of borrowing in an effort to control the rise in prices of essential commodities to rescue ordinary people.
The level of scale-back in hiring, however, was not uniform. In technology and outsourcing, the slow-down was not felt, while it was clearly visible in other domestic-market oriented sectors.
While recruitment dipped just 3% (compared to September) in IT-enabled industries (IT and BPO), it jumped 19% in Telecom.
All other sectors tracked by Naukri showed declines of 10% or more from September hiring levels.
Auto sector saw a 26% dip while Software, Pharma, Oil & Gas and Banking saw their hiring dip 13% and 19%.
The biggest dip (20%+) in demand was for production and sales executives while hiring of software professionals were impacted by only 13%.
Mumbai Delhi and Bengaluru saw indices dip by 21%,19% and 10% respectively in October over September.