August 2012 has witnessed a dip in hiring activity across sectors, functional areas and cities indicating that employers are cautious in their hiring activity as economic uncertainties and inflationary pressure continue to weigh down their sentiment.
After remaining flat for five consecutive months, the Naukri Job Speak index has seen a 4 per cent dip in August 2012 when compared to July 2012.
“The overall recruitment market in the economy is very challenging and most recruiters are staffing smartly and are opting for replacement hiring instead of recruiting new members. However, hiring has severely been affected in sectors like telecom, insurance and BPO,” said Hitesh Oberoi, Managing Director and CEO, Info Edge India.
Most industries, which had forecast a steady hiring scenario in the beginning of the year, have now started seeing a dip in hiring numbers. Construction and engineering sector has seen the highest month-on-month dip with hiring activity going down by 13 per cent in August Vs July.
Oil and gas, BPO, telecom and auto sectors saw recruitment levels dip within a range of six per cent and nine per cent. Both software services and insurance have seen about 2 per cent dip in hiring activity.
On the contrary, the banking sector has seen 12 per cent growth in recruitment activities over last month probably because of increased hiring in the public banks category.
Demand for professionals in banking rose over the last one month with the job index moving up by 20 per cent in August 2012 when compared to July 2012. On the contrary, the demand for sales and ITeS professionals has dipped by six per cent during the same time period.