Job listings improve; agro industries, telecom at pre-Covid levels: Report

Job listings continued to improve in December with industries including telecom, agro-based units, and media and entertainment returning to the pre-COVID-19 levels, according to a report.

As per the Monster Employment Index, in comparison to December 2019, job postings have improved after the pandemic with some industries returning to pre-COVID-19 levels.

The telecom sector grew 7 per cent, agro-based industries 6 per cent and media and entertainment 4 per cent, it said. Along with them, industries such as chemicals, trade and telecom continued to perform well, it added.

However, owing to the pandemic and its impact across various job sectors, the overall index has dropped significantly by 15 per cent as compared to the previous year (December 2019), it said.

The Monster Employment Index is a broad and comprehensive analysis of online job posting activity conducted by Monster India (a Quess Company).

According to the report, industries that have witnessed maximum growth in job postings compared to the previous month are chemicals, plastic, rubber, paints, fertiliser and pesticides (15 per cent), import and export (15 per cent), telecom and ISP (12 per cent), and printing and packaging (11 per cent).

Agro-based industries, garments, textiles, leather, gems and jewellery, and healthcare, biotechnology and life sciences, pharmaceuticals have also witnessed month-on-month growth of 7 per cent, respectively.

However, industries such as home appliances declined by 10 per cent, retail by 20 per cent saw the biggest drop compared to November 2020, the report noted.

Owing to the reopening of the economy, industries such as production and manufacturing,oil, gas and petroleum, power and travel, and tourism have shown improvement after the pandemic impact, it added.

In comparison to November 2020, oil, gas and petroleum, power have grown 5 per cent, production and manufacturing have grown 1 per cent and travel and tourism is down only 5 per cent.

Whereas production and manufacturing declined 35 per cent, oil/gas/petroleum, power 38 per cent, and travel and tourism 64 per cent are the most impacted, having seen the highest year-on-year decline compared to the other sectors due to the pandemic.

Jaipur, Coimbatore, Chennai and Pune saw growth in job postings in December, compared to November, postings in Bengaluru, Kolkata and Baroda remained neutral with no shiftscompared to the previous month.

Monster.com CEO Sekhar Garisa said, "We continue to see recovery in the job market, as there has been an uptick in the number of job postings across various sectors and functions, despite the challenges."

He added that while the impact of the pandemic and recovery has been different for each sector, "we are optimistic about the coming quarter given the various government and industrial boosts towards economicrecovery".

Further, the positive developments towards the vaccine discovery add to the hope that there will be more and more industries opening up and coming out of the pandemic-led slump, he added.