Mumbai: White-collar hiring activity grew by 10% year-on-year in October, primarily driven by recruitment increases in sectors such as oil and gas, pharmaceuticals, FMCG, and IT, according to a report released Monday.
The Naukri JobSpeak Index, a key indicator of white-collar hiring in India, showed strong growth in October, reaching 2,733 points, up from 2,484 in the same month of 2023, marking a notable 10% year-on-year increase.
Key sectors contributing to this growth included oil & gas (18%), pharma/biotech (12%), FMCG (8%), and IT (6%). AI/ML roles saw exceptional growth, increasing by 39% year-on-year, the report noted.
Hiring in the IT sector showed positive momentum in four of the seven months of this financial year, signaling favorable trends for the remainder of the year, the report added.The Naukri JobSpeak is a monthly Index representing the state of the Indian job market and hiring activity based on new job listings and job-related searches by recruiters on the resume database of Naukri.com.
The report further revealed that overall, global capability centres (GCCs) demonstrated consistent growth with a 17 per cent year-on-year increase in October.
GCCs showed significant traction in emerging hubs like Kolkata (68.46 per cent) and Ahmedabad (47.68 per cent) indicating a growing preference among international companies to expand beyond traditional tech centres for their India operations, it added.
The festive period also witnessed a significant growth in data-focused positions — data/big data testing engineer (64 per cent), full stack data scientist (46 per cent), data platform engineer (26 per cent) and data scientist (23 per cent), it said.
The report also found that after a sluggish performance throughout 2024, hiring for freshers showed encouraging signs with a 6 per cent year-on-year growth in October.
When it came to locations, southern states demonstrated exceptional growth in white-collar hiring, with multiple cities showing strong year-on-year gains, said the report.
Tamil Nadu emerged as the strongest performer with a 24 per cent year-on-year growth, followed by Telangana (16 per cent), Karnataka (12 per cent), Andhra Pradesh (9 per cent) and Kerala (7 per cent), it stated.
“The accelerating pace of fresher hiring is a strong indicator of business confidence and presents exciting opportunities for upcoming graduates,” Naukri Chief Business Officer Pawan Goyal said.
PNN & Agencies
