From IT to retail, the top five sectors where hiring continues to be strong

India’s organized job market will continue its good run at least in the short to medium term, despite hiccups and recalibrations witnessed in a portion of the labour market in general and startup ecosystem in particular.

Data collected from various agencies, both private and government, shows that the gradual post-pandemic recovery and the acceleration of economic activities offer a positive environment for the organized sector job creation. And sectors such as IT, retail, ecommerce, financial services, hospitality, and education are among a clutch of sectors which will create more jobs.

“Overall, the trends indicate that an increase in hiring intent is imminent,” according to staffing and human resources firm TeamLease Services, which has underlined that almost 10 key sectors will continue to hire well in the Q2 of FY23.

“Hiring activity stays strong…Records 22 percent Y-O-Y growth in June 2022,” said Naukri, one of the leading job aggregators.

This assertion from staffing firms, talent managers, and job aggregators also syncs with the broader government figures related to merchandise export, GST collections, and payroll numbers.

The growth in merchandise exports by 16.78 percent in June against the same period last year, and GST collections in June crossing over Rs. 1.45 lakh crore, higher than the same period a year ago and the previous month of the current fiscal, only strengthens the economic acceleration debate and aids the jobs market. The retirement fund body EPFO's latest data for April 2022 also showed a net addition of 17.07 lakh workers, as against 15.32 lakh reported in March 2022.

India’s merchandise exports during the first Quarter of 2022-23 (April-June) jumped 22.2 percent to $116.7 billion, recording the highest ever exports during the first quarter, according to preliminary data of the union government. Non-Petroleum exports rose 11.9 percent to $92.5 billion in the first quarter, according to the union commerce ministry. Similarly, petroleum products, electronic goods, and readymade garments recorded major increase in exports during Q1 of Fy23.

Whether job creations happening is adequate for a large labour market like India, or whether all organized jobs are qualitative remains a subject of  discourse as much now as it was in the pre-Covid times.

But, sectors such as IT, Retail, e-commerce, BFSI, FMCG, hospitality, telecom, construction, education are among a host of sectors that are hiring and will continue to hire, according to staffing firms and job boards.

Moneycontrol looks at top five sectors where hiring will continue and the sentiment is strong.

IT/ITes:

During July-September, the IT and ITes firms have the highest intent to hire across verticals and across roles. According to data collected by TeamLease, while the information technology space had a hiring intent of 95 percent in the Q1 of Fy23, it has jumped to 98 percent in Q2. A high attrition of over 20 percent in this sector also indicates demand for talent.

There is a 10 percent growth in hiring in IT software and software services sector, detailed data analysis of Naukri’s job speak study shows. If one takes the BPO and ITes segment, then the growth is 37 percent  year-on-year, the job board said. Another job aggregator Monster.com said the BPO and ITes segment registered a 12 percent growth in hiring in June.

Ecommerce & logistics:

Ecommerce and logistics will continue to be a big employer, and it will absorb more in the next two quarters for sure. The impending festival season, a key period of demand generation, will positively drive this segment and few others, said RP Yadav, chairman of staffing firm Genius Consultants.

Yadav’s assessment almost echoes TeamLease’s quarterly employment outlook. The staffing firm says ecommerce & allied segment companies have projected 89 percent intent to hire in Q2 of Fy23, as against 81 percent during April-June quarter of the current fiscal.

BFSI:

According to Monster.com, BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance) sector remains a top recruiter and has registered a 28 percent growth in hiring during June as against the year-ago period. TeamLease’s employment outlook for Q2 almost furthered this belief and underlined that the hiring intent has grown 9 percentage points in BFSI sector in Q2 against Q1.

Several others have also indicated that banking and financial sector including fintech will continue to be a lead recruiter.

Amrit Jaidka Arora, chief human resource officer at Digit Insurance, an Indian unicorn backed by Prem Watsa’s Fairfax Group, said their hiring plan remains strong, and the firm has already onboarded few hundred freshers, and more are onboarding.

According to Naukri, hiring at banking and financial services firms grew 58 percent in June 2022, against the same period a year back. But month on month, the numbers for this segment remains largely flat, data showed.

Retail:

Retails and hospitality has seen a good traction in last few months and will continue to do so, said Yadav of Genius Consultants.  The demand for retail and more so, essential retail, food and restaurant business can easily be seen if one goes to a local market or mall, he asserted. There is an uptick in this broad sector, and there is no denying of the fact that it will only grow in coming months, he added.

Teamlease data shows that retail sector’s hiring intent has gone up by 8 percent points in Q2 as against Q1 of the current fiscal.

Employment in retail trade being less dependent on external demand, has bounced back rapidly.  If one takes FMCG as part of this braider basket, then recruiters argue that the job sentiment looks quite positive here too.

As per Naukri, the hiring in retail sector in June 2022 has seen a 75 percent  jump when compared with a year ago period.

Education and allied services:

Industry experts and recruiters argue that layoffs in edtech segment has created a lot of noise and rightly so. But, edtech as an employer is very small,  when you compare it with the larger education sector.

The reopening of colleges, schools and physical coaching classes in past few months have aided employment in the sector. Its large allied sector from publishing to clothing, shoes, from essential stationary to transport have picked up as crores of students are now attending education in schools, colleges and universities.

India's education sector is one of the largest in the world and caters to around 300 million students in schools, and higher educational institutions.

Along with IT, education sector is another top recruiter and will remain so in Q2 of Fy23, data from Teamlease shows. The hiring intent for Q2 has jumped five percentage points to 91 percent in Q2 as against the previous quarter.