Job openings have increased across travel and tourism, and advertising and public relations (PR) firms as these industries are in a revival phase after two years of dealing with the impact of Covid-19-led challenges.
The two sectors saw a 15 percent uptick in hiring activity in January this year compared to last year, according to data from foundit, an employment search service.
"Advertising and PR saw a 6 percent growth in hiring activity in January 2023 when compared to December 2022 and 15 percent on a year-on-year basis, while travel/tourism saw a 5 percent upsurge on a month-on-month basis and 15 percent on an annual basis. Both industries have made large contributions towards employment growth in January 2023 and have emerged in top three list on an annualised basis," said Sekhar Garisa, CEO, foundit (previously Monster).
In the aftermath of the pandemic, the revival of the travel and tourism industry has boomed, an effect of what has been termed “revenge travel”. Rikant Pittie, co-founder, EaseMyTrip, said, "Air India has hired over 1,900 cabin crew between May 2022 and Feb 2023. Similarly, over 1,100 cabin crew members were trained in the last seven months. Several other airlines have begun expanding their capacity and fleets to meet the rising demand. EaseMyTrip is also expanding and we expect to grow our workforce in the coming fiscal year.”
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At least one other company in the travel space is looking to expand its staff strength.
"We are actively seeking new talent to join the team. We have seen a surge in demand for our services. To meet this demand, we are expanding our team across various functions, including sales, customer service, marketing, operations and technology," said A Krishna Mohan, managing director, Southern Travels.
Job roles
“Top job roles in the travel and tourism segment include travel consultants that made up 15 percent of positions offered in January 2023 whereas customer service executives had a share of 11 percent of total positions offered, followed by roles in products and technology with a share of 8 percent," said Garisa.
For advertising and PR, the top roles in demand are those in digital marketing with a share of 24 percent of the total in the industry, research analysts at 24 percent and content specialists at 29 percent.
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Garisa added that the hiring is largely driven by airline companies along with emerging OTA (online travel operators) platforms in the travel and tourism sector, whereas in the advertising and PR industry, the demand is seen largely in market research companies.
Agencies dealing with SEO or search engine optimisation, online reputation management, media planning and influencer marketing for their clients are likely to invest more in improving the skills of their current workforce, or hiring new talent with relevant skills, said Michell Anthony, director, human resources, at Blink Digital, an ad agency. The company that has also been actively hiring said that there has been an increase in demand for social media managers, media planners and content creators in the advertising and marketing sector.
"Additionally, due to the emergence of AI (artificial intelligence) and the rise of targeted marketing, the demand for professionals with technical expertise in Web3, such as data engineers, data analysts and data scientists is also increasing significantly," she added.
For instance, PR company Value 360 Communications is looking to hire around 100 new professionals this year. "We are hiring at a steady pace," said Kunal Kishore Sinha, founder and director.
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Madchatter Brand Solutions is expanding its team to cater to increasing business opportunities. "2023 will see a significant increase in hiring within the PR industry due to expected brand spends on marketing and PR at large," said Rachna Baruah, founder of the communications firm.
In the past few months, there has been massive hiring taking place within the ad industry, said Sonam Shah, founder and CEO, Treize Communications.
"After three years of slowdown, companies are now in a better shape to spend on marketing. This means ad agencies will have to keep more team members and support teams to meet end-moment demands. We are also hiring, from interns to mid-level associates, and expect to increase our team by more than double by the end of this year. We will see a spike during the festive season, as brands will pump in money for marketing campaigns," she added.
City-wise hiring trends
Foundit data also highlighted location trends that showed Kochi reporting the highest increase in job postings in the travel and tourism segment with 47 percent growth in January followed by Chandigarh at 29 percent and Chennai at 25 percent on a year-on-year basis.
For advertising and PR, Delhi/NCR, Chennai and Bengaluru recorded 57 percent, 51 percent and 16 percent growth, respectively, over the last year.
"The pace of recruitment growth is moderate as employers continue to exhibit a cautious approach owing to the challenging economic environment. However, there are pockets of elevated demand that suggest relatively favourable conditions in certain industry sectors such as retail, travel and tourism and advertising, market research and the PR sector. Travel and tourism, advertising and PR have reflected continuous growth since last year and strong optimism to hire has led to the overall growth in the recruitment landscape," said Garisa.
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