Healthcare, e-commerce and financial services led the hiring activity in the January-March 2021 period, the India Hiring Tracker report by online jobs platform Indeed showed.
The report said that although overall hiring activity in the quarter remained robust, the monthly hiring trend did show a progressive decline.
Sashi Kumar, Head of Sales, Indeed India, said that monthly hiring went down from 38 percent in January 2021 to 26 percent in March because of the second wave of COVID-19.
"This showed that there was a decrease in the number of companies that said that they will hire. However, we are seeing green shoots in hiring as per early trends," he added.
The survey was conducted by Valuevox on behalf of Indeed among 500 employees and 350 businesses across 9 cities in the month of March 2021.
Kumar said that travel/tourism and hospitality continued to be the worst hit among various sectors, even though business had improved between November 2020 and February 2021.
As essential business activities were prioritized during the pandemic, organizations aligned their hiring to scale up for the operational roles.
The report said the top roles that employers hired for were operational/support roles like team lead, business analyst, content head and service engineer which contributed 25 percent.
This was followed by technical roles like mobile app developer, CAD/CAM engineer, which contributed 18 percent, while blue-collar roles like delivery personnel, electrician, ITI trainee contributed to 15 percent in Q4FY21. Hiring for management roles was the lowest, at 3 percent.
Kumar said that with work-from-home being the new normal, wellbeing and flexibility are slowly becoming the new focus areas. Bengaluru was leading hiring activity among cities, and Chennai lagging behind all others at 35 percent.
The Indeed report said that the focus on health and wellness in a work-from-anywhere environment saw 32 percent of jobseekers describe an ideal/excellent organisation as one that prioritises employee wellness, followed by a fun work culture (25 percent) and innovation (19 percent).
Another interesting finding shows that except for a marginally higher preference for MNCs/large companies (38 percent), jobseekers were equally inclined to work at any organization type. Here, 61 percent of the females surveyed expressed a preference to work in SMBs/startups as opposed to 21 percent of the males.
Among the job-seekers, about 36 percent of job seekers spent between 1 to 2 hours searching for a job -- employed job seekers spent 30 minutes a day, while unemployed job seekers spent 2 hours a day.
"Most hiring will happen in entry level and mid-career level. Female participation did suffer at the beginning of the pandemic but now even women are looking for a job change," he added.
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