Hiring intent for freshers improves for 2023, IT and e-commerce takes lead: Report

In-demand courses that freshers can undertake to increase their employability include Certification in DevOps, Supply Chain Management, Data Engineering, Business and Corporate Law.

Employers’ intent of hiring fresh graduates has marginally improved to 62 percent for the current half-year (January–June 2023), a 3 percent increase over the July–December 2022 period, according to the Career Outlook Report released by TeamLease Edtech, a unit of staffing company TeamLease Services.

The Hiring Intent is a measure that represents the percentage of employers likely to hire new graduates.

The intent of employers across all categories of jobseekers in India – fresh or experienced candidates– has risen to 68 percent from 61 percent over the same duration, the report showed.

TeamLease Edtech surveyed 874 large, medium and small businesses across manufacturing, services and technology between October and November 2022 for the study. Employers have realised that hiring lateral talents at a premium is not helping them achieve the intended Return on Investment (ROI), the report said.

“They would be better off engaging with universities early on and creating their sustainable talent pool,” it said.

The top industries having a higher hiring outlook for freshers in the current half-year are information technology (67 percent), e-commerce & technology startups (52 percent), telecommunications (51 percent), healthcare & pharmaceuticals (45 percent) and engineering & infrastructure (44 percent).

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The key drivers behind the recent layoffs are the funding winter driving many start-ups to become cost-efficient, and the precautionary layoffs by technology companies owing to a looming recession in Western countries, said Shantanu Rooj, Founder and CEO of TeamLease EdTech.

“However, employers now have modified their hiring strategies – replacing high-cost resources with lower-cost freshers, who are trained for a specific tech stack and also working on models to build long-term sustainable talent supply chains,” he said.

In-demand courses

Roles such as data engineer, cloud developer, digital marketing executive and cybersecurity engineer are in high demand across industries. In-demand courses that freshers can join to increase their employability include certification in supply chain management, data engineering, business and corporate law.

Apart from domain skills, employers are keen to hire candidates, who demonstrate higher levels of cognitive skills like negotiating skills, collaboration and communication skills, learnability, critical thinking and analysis.

The top three cities with the intent to hire freshers in the current half year (January–June 2023) are Bengaluru (75 percent) followed by Mumbai (56 percent) and Delhi (47 percent).

Sectors driving job growth 

The report said India’s IT and business services market is projected to reach $19.93 billion by 2025, and major IT are likely to hire more than 1,55,000 freshers in the next financial year.

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The technological trends in the IT industry for 2023 are artificial intelligence, internet of things, edge computing, cybersecurity and revamping IT infrastructure for 5G technology.

The Indian education market is expected to reach $225 billion by FY 2024-25. The online education market in the country is expected to grow to $2.28 billion during 2021-2025, expanding at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of almost 20 percent.

Emerging trends like nano-learning, gamification and the use of digital technologies like AI, virtual reality & augmented reality and phygital learning (a smart learning ecosystem that balances digital content-driven experience together with a physical or live context) are likely to generate significant job demand for freshers in the education industry.

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The rollout of 5G services by Indian telecom service providers is expected to create demand for up to 45,000 jobs. The top trending technologies in telecom for 2023 are 5G technology, AI, cloud computing, cybersecurity and cloud billing platforms.