White-Collar Hiring Remains Steady in June 2023: Naukri Jobspeak

Core Domestic Economy sectors continue to fuel positive hiring sentiments

Mumbai, White-collar hiring in India continued to consolidate in June 2023. The Naukri JobSpeak Index, one of most accurate measures of hiring in India based on approximately 10 lakh jobs per month, stood at 2795 in June 2023.

This is a 3% decline compared to June 2022 and 2% decline compared to May 2023. While the number of white collar jobs in the Tech sector and Metros declined, the number of jobs in the real estate and energy sectors, specially in non-metros, mitigated this decline to yield an overall flat job market.

Oil & Gas, Real Estate, and Pharma Sectors fly high.

The Oil & Gas sector continued its bull run with 40% growth in new jobs compared to June last year. This is in line with the rapid refinery expansion and supporting roles to meet the increased domestic and export demand. The key roles witnessing maximum hiring include Exploration Engineers, Refinery Operations Managers, and Health, Safety, and Environment Specialists (HSE Specialists), predominantly in Ahmedabad, Mumbai, and Delhi NCR regions. Hiring in this sector skewed toward professionals with mid-level experience.

The Real Estate sector continued its bull run with 17% growth in new jobs creation compared to June last year. Riding the infrastructure development and commercial real estate boom, Mumbai and Chennai surfaced as the key employment hubs for roles like Property Appraisers, Construction Project Managers, and Real Estate Consultants.

Similarly, the Pharma sector surged with a 14% growth in new jobs compared to June last year. Propelled by sustained R&D investments in drug development, the cities of Ahmedabad, Chennai and Pune emerged as preferred destinations for hiring Biotechnologists, Clinical Research Analysts, and Quality Assurance Specialists.

Automobile, Hospitality, and Banking were some of the other sectors witnessing positive hiring sentiments, with 12%, 11%, and 11% growth in the new jobs created compared to June last year.

The IT industry hiring continued to remain an area of concern, with a 31% decline in new jobs created compared to June last year. The decline in hiring was prominent across all types of IT companies, including global tech giants, large IT services companies, tech-focused startups, and unicorns.

Hiring dipped across all Metros and Non-Metros, with IT-dependent metro cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, and Pune being hardest hit. While traditional roles such as Software Developers and System Analysts continued to witness a downturn, niche roles such as Cybersecurity Analysts and AI Specialists showed positive hiring trends, bucking the negative trend across most other tech roles.

Besides IT, sectors such as Retail, BPO, Education, FMCG, and Insurance also showed cautious hiring sentiments with a dip of 23%, 17%, 9%, 9%, and 7%, respectively, in hiring trends compared to June last year.

Geographical Pivot: Non-Metro Cities continue to emerge as Employment Hubs

Diversification of white-collar jobs to non-metro cities continued apace. Ahmedabad topped the list with an unprecedented 23% growth in employment compared to June last year, followed by Vadodara with 14% growth, while Jaipur continued to hold steady. Auto, Construction, and Pharma sectors played a significant role in driving this hiring spree across Non-Metros.

On the other hand, hiring activity continued to dip across large IT-driven metros, except Mumbai, which held steady compared to June 2022, primarily driven by the Oil & Gas and Hospitality sector. Despite a minor dip of 5% in overall white-collar hiring trends, Delhi NCR witnessed an employment surge in Healthcare and Electrical switchgear sectors.

Pawan Goyal, Chief Business Officer of Naukri.com, comments,”The white collar job market of India is witnessing a structural shift. For a long time, jobs in the tech sector and in top metros were the key drivers of white collar job growth. Of late, jobs in the emerging sectors such as real estate, oil and gas, pharma and BFSI have emerged as significant contributors to job growth”.