Employers cautious in hiring intent in Q3: ManpowerGroup report

When compared to the same period last year, there is an overall decrease across industry sizes with no change in the small industries.

Strong staffing climates are predicted in India from June to September 2024 with a Net Employment Outlook (NEO) of 30 percent points, according to ManpowerGroup Employment Outlook Survey Q3, 2024.

However, compared to the last quarter and the third quarter of 2023, the Indian NEO has worsened by six points. India ranks sixth globally for its employment outlook, eight points above the global average. The survey, gathering data from 3,150 employers, depicted the financial and real estate industries as forerunners in creating employment followed by healthcare and life sciences.

Overall, the strongest hiring intentions continue in north of India (36 percent) followed by west (31 percent), south (30 percent) and east (21 percent) reporting the least optimistic outlooks. All sectors have, however, declined when compared to the same period last year.

Large organisations (with 1,000-4,999 employees ) indicate the strongest optimism in hiring with the Net Employment Outlook of 42 percent followed by small (50–249 employees) and medium (with 250-999 employees) organizations (34 percent) and large enterprise (30 percent).

When compared to the same period last year, there is an overall decrease across industry sizes with no change in the small industries.

Sector-wise, financials and real estate sector and healthcare and life sciences continue to dominate the market with the strongest hiring intentions (39 percent) and (36 percent), respectively. The weakest outlook is indicated for communication services and transport, logistics and automotive (17 percent).

More than 62 percent of employers have adopted AI including generative conversational AI with 80 percent of the senior leadership team optimistic about the positive impact of AI on overall business as opposed to 68 percent of Frontline and Factory workers.

Contrary to common belief, almost 68 percent of employers plan to increase headcount due to the adoption of AI and machine learning over the next two years led by the communication services sector (75 percent), financial and real estate (72 percent), industrials & materials and information technology (70 percent each).

“The global slowdown has been impacting the IT sector in India for quite a while. Added to the circumstances, is the political uncertainty looming over the country due to general elections during data collection of this survey. Clearly, employers are being cautious in their short-term resource planning.," said ManpowerGroup’s India and Middle East Managing Director Sandeep Gulati.

“The real estate sector, however, has seen an increased investor interest with a capital inflow to the tune of 1.1 billion USD led by the residential sector. We hope the gap between the demand for specific skills and supply is bridged with strategic long-term talent planning in corporates in India. Hire, train and deploy is a strategy that can make a difference to mitigate this problem.”