After a dry April, hiring sentiment improves in May

While job postings dipped in April 2021 owing to onset of the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, job seekers were pleasantly surprised in May 2021, which showed green shoots of recovery.

IT sector, particularly, has seen an exponential growth. Hiring across IT verticals such as hardware, software witnessed a year-on-year growth of 67 per cent in Bengaluru and 49 per cent in Hyderabad.

Industries that indicate the highest year-on-year growth in hiring across the key cities are Banking/ Financial Services, Insurance and IT - Hardware, Software, according to Monster Employment Index, a job analysis report by Monster.com, a Quess Company.

Among the functions, Software, Hardware, Telecom indicate growth across all the key cities such as Bengaluru (79 per cent), Hyderabad (62 per cent), and Chennai (50 per cent). Overall recruitment activities showed a phenomenal uptrend in most of the cities year-on-year, says the report.

It mentions that a year-on-year (May 2021 vs. May 2020) comparison shows hiring in 56 per cent of the industries fared better as compared to the same time last year.

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The report indicates that companies and employers are now better equipped to face the pandemic, despite the effect of the second wave. "IT - Hardware, Software (29 per cent), Logistics, Courier/ Freight/ Transportation (25 per cent) and Telecom/ISP (23 per cent) industries indicated the highest growth in job postings. However, Travel and Tourism job postings again showed a year-on-year decline with a 49 per cent decline in May 2021. Education (-31 per cent) and Engineering, Cement, Construction, Iron/ Steel (-20 per cent) industries also witnessed a decline in hiring activities, year-on-year."

According to data from Gi Group India, Bengaluru has witnessed a bulk of demand with over 10 per cent increase in IT hiring requests compared to last quarter and almost 75 per cent increase as compared to the same quarter last year. Some of the skills which are in demand include Cloud computing, DevOps, Mobile App Developer, Information Security, Networking, Data Scientists, Project Management, Artificial Intelligence, and the Internet of Things.

Sonal Arora Executive Director & Business staffing head, Gi Group India, tells DH, hiring for IT skills and roles is at an all-time high.

Arora adds, "The current pandemic situation and resultant work-from-home and study-from-home scenarios have led to an exponential increase in hiring for IT skills, both in IT and other companies. In addition to IT companies, Shared Services Companies, Edu-tech companies, and ecommerce companies are hiring across experience levels in a big way."

Entry-level jobs saw a dip in demand by -2 per cent. Top Management professionals (20 per cent), Mid-Senior professionals (1 per cent), and Intermediate roles (1 per cent) witnessed positive month-on-month growth. Hiring demand for Senior Management professionals (0 per cent) remains neutral, states the Index.

Sekhar Garisa, CEO - Monster.com says, "It is promising to see an improvement in hiring despite the impact of the second wave of the pandemic. Industries and functions have now learned to adapt to the current situation and hence the disruptions are lesser in the hiring plans."