Vacancies for blue-collar jobs in India rose in FY23, but job seekers down

The vacancies for blue-collar jobs in India rose from 5.33 million in 2021-22 (FY22) to 5.71 million in FY23, but the demand for these jobs fell sharply, data released by Billion Careers, a subsidiary of Quess Corp on Tuesday showed. The number of blue-collar job seekers in India fell from 3.34 million in FY22 to 2.01 million in FY23.

The fall in job demand was noted in delivery and driver, BPO and customer care, and data entry roles. In categories like field sales, business development, human resource and admin, and security guard, the number of job seekers rose in FY23.

The data, which was based on job postings on the company's hiring platform Qjobs, also revealed that the number of vacancies and the demand for these jobs fell in March compared to February.

The number of vacancies fell from 1.71 million in February to 1.66 million in March. However, the number of candidates seeking such jobs fell steeper from 60,004 to 19,371 during the same period. 

Out of all the major cities in the country, Delhi saw the highest year-on-year (YoY) increase of 54 per cent in demand for blue-collar workers. The surge in demand here was due to the growing e-commerce and delivery industry and the increasing investment in the logistics and warehousing sector. Mumbai saw a marginal increase in demand for such workers.

However, the demand fell in Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune. 

The data also showed that freshers hold the majority of blue-collar jobs in India with a work experience of zero to three years. Out of the total blue-collar hiring in 2022, 82.84 per cent were freshers.

16.88 per cent of these jobs were held by those with work experience of four to six years. 0.19 per cent and 0.14 per cent of these were taken by those with experience of seven to 10 years and over ten years, respectively.

Moreover, women constituted just 15.74 per cent of the total blue-collar workforce in the country. 84.26 per cent of these jobs were taken by men.

"The government and companies should take measures to promote women's participation in non-traditional jobs, ensure equal pay for their work, and implement policies to guarantee a secure and welcoming work atmosphere for them," the report said.