Hiring activity improved in October with relaxed lockdown restrictions

For the first time after Covid pandemic hit the job market, hiring activity performed slightly better in the month of October, observed a report titled 'A report on Hiring Activity in India' published by Naukri.com. However, job hiring activity during October 2020 remained 17 per cent lower on a year on year (YOY) basis, compared to last October.

Increasing demand in IT- Hardware/Technical sectore of 15 per cent, Banking/Insurance with 10 per cent and 6 per cent in Purchase/Logistics were observed in October this year compared to 2019. On the contrary, sectors such as hotel/restaurant and travel and tourism related sectors suffered with a drop of 66 per cent and 54 per cent, respectively. Compared with last year, the recruitment of freshers got decreased by 21 per cent.

"Oct '20 sees slight improvement in Y-O-Y hiring activity due to lower bases last year on account of festivity. Interestingly, key sectors such as IT, BPO/ITES and BFSI are showing improvements in hiring sequentially. 26% recruiters feel that the hiring activity will return to pre-COVID levels in the next three to six months as per our recently concluded Hiring Outlook survey. We are also hopeful of the same." Pawan Goyal, Chief Business Offices of Naukri.com commented.

The hiring process in metro cities witnesses a large dip followed by the pandemic and it measured more declined than the national level, -23 per cent against -17 per cent. Among metro cities, Mumbai ranked as the worst performer with a 28 per cent decline in hiring process compared with 2019 statistics.