India’s hiring activity touched new heights in February 2022, according to Naukri’s JobSpeak as the re-opening of the Indian ecosystem reinforced a positive sentiment among employers and jobseekers.

The Naukri JobSpeak is a monthly index that calculates and records hiring activity based on the job listings on Naukri.com website month on month.

The Naukri index stood at 3074 in February 2022, surpassing its previous high of 2753, clocked in September 2021.  

The index witnessed an uptick of over 31 per cent year-over-year (YoY) in February 2022 vs February 2021.  

Growth across sectors

“As the Indian economy sees a gradual return to normalcy, sustained growth in the hiring activity was observed across all key sectors,” the report said.

The insurance sector clocked the highest growth in hiring activity in the month at over 74 per cent when compared with the same period last year, followed by retail (64 per cent) that has showcased a sharp uptick since last year. 

“Interestingly, after a long sluggish period, the auto industry finally showed signs of recovery in February 2022,” the report said. The sector recorded a growth of over 12 per cent compared to February 2021.

Sectors such as IT-software/software services (41 per cent), banking/financial services (35 per cent), pharma (34 per cent), hospitality (41 per cent) and telecom (23 per cent) continued to demonstrate strong and consistent growth as “concerns around Covid reduced drastically in February 2022,” it added.

Medical/healthcare (7 per cent) and FMCG (4 per cent) sectors showed marginal growth in hiring activity when compared with the same period last year. 

Upsurge in hiring in metros

Metro cities continued to observe an upsurge in hiring as emerging cities show promise, as per the report.

Top metro cities witnessed a “very healthy” rise in demand as Kolkata (56 per cent) recorded the highest y-o-y hiring trend which was closely followed by Bengaluru (49 per cent), Mumbai (45 per cent), Chennai (45 per cent), Hyderabad (43 per cent), Pune (41 per cent) and Delhi (30 per cent).  

In non-metro cities, Coimbatore (57 per cent) recorded the highest y-o-y growth beating its past trend followed by Ahmedabad (32 per cent) and Kochi (16 per cent). Further, Jaipur (15 per cent) saw shoots of success, while Vadodara remained flat (-3 per cent) during the month compared to last year.  

Increase in demand

The demand for professionals across all experience bands grew by over 25 per cent.

“The hiring trend across all the experience bands tread on a positive y-o-y growth trajectory in February 2022 vs February 2021,” it said.

When compared with last year, the demand for mid to senior experienced professionals belonging to the 13-16 years category witnessed the highest growth at over 35 per cent. The demand for professionals in 8-12 years (31 per cent), 0-3 years (30 per cent), 4-7 years (30 per cent) and above 16 years (27 per cent) bracket also remained strong.  

Pawan Goyal, Chief Business Officer, Naukri.com said, “Clocking 3074, Naukri JobSpeak has set a new benchmark for nation’s hiring activity indicating a favourable time for white collar job market. With sectors like auto/auto ancillary showing recovery after a long time, and other major organised sectors sustaining growth, one can say that both sentiment and confidence are strong among the jobseekers.”