Hiring activity grew by 26% YoY in November: Naukri.com jobs index

On the back of increased retail fervour, festive hype and the opening up of educational institutes, the Naukri JobSpeak index recorded 26 per cent year-on-year (YoY) growth in November.

The onset of the festive season marked the comeback of the retail sector--showing a 47 per cent YoY growth in November. Hospitality and travel, another sector which has traditionally benefited in the festive season, saw a 58 per cent rise in hirin activity in November on a yoY basis. The education sector saw a 54 per cent uptick in hiring, according to the Nakuri.com jobs index.

Hiring activity in November has also grown in major job creation sectors--up 30 per cent in banking and financial services and more than 50 per cent in the IT sector. While the Telecom/ISP industry grew 91 per cent in November compared to the same month last year, the index reported a muted growth in the medical/healthcare (3 per cent) and FMCG (6 per cent) sectors.

Hiring in metros and tier-II cities recorded 39 per cent and 16 per cent average annual growth, respectively. According to data from Naukri, continuous growth of the IT-Software and BFSI sectors have enabled metro cities to outperform their tier-II counterparts in the annual growth charts.

The average YoY growth recorded in metro cities was 39 per cent whereas non-metros grew at a slower pace of 16 per cent. Hyderabad (47 per cent), Pune (47 per cent) and Bengaluru (49 per cent) recorded the highest growth in November. Hiring was also positive in Mumbai with 36 per cent growth, Delhi/NCR 34 per cent and Chennai 35 per cent, while Kolkata at 23 per cent witnessed relatively slower growth.

Among the non-metros, Ahmedabad (61 per cent) witnessed maximum growth in November followed by Coimbatore (28 per cent) compared to the same period last year.

The unemployment rate in urban areas of the country for the people of all ages fell to 9.4 per cent in January-March 2021, Business Standard reported earlier. This was the lowest since the nationwide lockdown was imposed in March last year but was higher than the pre-pandemic levels of 9.1 per cent, showed the Periodic Labour Force survey by the National Statistical Office (NSO).

The unemployment rate in January-March 2020 was at 9.1 per cent in urban areas for people of all ages, the survey showed.

Joblessness, or the unemployment rate, is defined as the percentage of unemployed persons in the labour force, which is the sum of people who are working and those who are looking for work. The rate for the current weekly status (CWS) in urban areas for persons of all ages was 10.3 per cent in October-December 2020, the survey showed.