Hiring activity sees 6% growth in March on improving economic activities: Report

Mumbai: Hiring activity witnessed a 6 per cent year-on-year growth in March this year, supported by a rebound in economic activities and led by sectors such as banking and telecom, according to a report. However, there was a marginal dip of 2.4 per cent in hiring activity as compared to February, owing to the appraisal season, according to the Monster Employment Index (MEI).

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"Two years into the pandemic, it is heartening to see that the Indian economy has overcome setbacks and challenges with hiring momentum exceeding pre-COVID levels by 6 per cent this year compared to 2020," Monster.com, a Quess company, CEO Sekhar Garisa noted.

Garisa further noted that "as India Inc continues to adopt the hybrid and back-to-office work models, we hope to see a continued recovery and a step forward to normalcy in the coming months."

In March, online recruitment activity exceeded the year-ago level in 11 out of the 13 cities monitored by the index. All metros registered a double-digit growth on an annual basis, it added.

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The Monster Employment Index is a comprehensive monthly analysis of online job posting activity conducted by Monster India. Hiring demand in March was driven by banking/financial services and insurance which showed remarkable improvement (up 37 per cent) followed by telecom/ISP (up 17 per cent) and production and manufacturing (up 16 per cent).

Additionally, jobs rebounded for the hospitality and travel (up 11 per cent) personnel after a long time and experienced significantly improved demand levels annually. However, engineering, cement, construction, and iron/ steel (down 20 per cent) continued to witness a year-on-year decline in the series since April 2020, registering the sharpest deceleration among sectors.

The pace of the growth moderated further for media and entertainment (down 16 per cent) and FMCG, food and packaged Food (down 13 per cent) industry and slid down in March 2022 annually, according to MEI data. Further, the report revealed that Mumbai continued to be the biggest job market, closely followed by Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu.

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It is also encouraging to see a substantial rise in business activity across tier-II cities given that smaller cities have historically feathered the adverse effects of the pandemic crisis with a surplus talent pool to boot, Garisa said.

The financial capital of the country (up 21 per cent) led all the monitored cities for the first time on a yearly basis followed by Coimbatore (up 20 per cent), Chennai and Hyderabad (up 16 per cent each), according to the report. E-recruitment activity in Bengaluru (up 15 per cent) charted a positive trend, however, it was lower from the previous months, it noted. While Pune recorded 12 per cent growth, Kolkata and Delhi-NCR registered a growth of 13 per cent each, the report said.