Naukri survey: About 40% of recruiters expect hiring to return to pre-pandemic levels in next 3 months

India is gearing up for an uptick in hiring as corporates embrace the post-pandemic world. According to Naukri.com’s Hiring Outlook survey, 51 percent of recruiters indicated both new and replacement hiring in their organisations.

Many businesses were impacted during the pandemic and as a result, job security was threatened across multiple sectors. However, lay-offs are becoming a thing of the past, with just a percent of recruiters indicating lay-offs in their organisation compared to 36 percent in the earlier survey, Naukri said.

Almost 40 percent of the recruiters expect hiring to go back to pre-pandemic levels in the next three months itself which is in contrast with the sentiments from an earlier survey wherein only 20 percent of recruiters expected hiring to return to normalcy within three months.

The appetite for hiring is up as 32 percent of recruiters confirm they would be hiring for new jobs. Interestingly, recruiters indicating that hiring was on hold are just at 5 percent versus 11 percent in a similar survey conducted in September 2020.

“Hiring outlook showcases an upbeat sentiment amongst the recruiters and consultants," Pawan Goyal, Chief Business Officer, Naukri.com said in a statement. "In fact, employers are also positive about extending increments to their employees. This is a strong indicator that businesses are moving towards actioning their growth plans and not just survival or business continuity strategies."

He said digitisation is the key priority across companies and it is encouraging to see the IT sector lead hiring in the coming months.

For conducting the bi-annual survey, 1384 recruiters and consultants representing over 10 major sectors participated and the date from the participants was collected online using a detailed questionnaire. The data received from the process was analyzed to present meaningful trends and insights.

Normalcy on the horizon is foreseen as employers have a positive outlook to extend increments to their employees. Nearly 27 percent of recruiters plan to roll out increments greater than 15 percent in their respective organisations while the most opted for increment bracket is 5-10 percent, according to 35 percent of the recruiters.

Many jobseekers were unsure of switching during the pandemic but as markets have stabilised, one-third of recruiters expect attrition in the range of 10-20 percent, while another 7 percent foresee attrition levels greater than 20 percent. The bulk of this is expected from employees with 1-5 years of experience. Given a surge in demand, IT roles can also witness higher attrition.

With the jobs market back to its hiring ways, recruiters have predicted that retaining & attracting skilled employees will be a challenge in the coming six months. Aligning with that, 45 percent of recruiters are expecting an intense talent crunch and the experience band of 3 - 5 years is expected to be the most impacted, the report said.