Hiring demand dips 3% in October due to decline in recruitment, says report

New Delhi: Hiring demand witnessed a dip of three per cent in October sequentially, mainly due to a decline in recruitment of professionals in purchase, logistics and supply chain after festive hiring hikes in September, according to a report.

Data from the Monster Employment Index indicates that hiring demand witnessed a three per cent dip in October as compared to September 2021.

However, there has been a strong year-on-year recovery with a nine per cent uptick in October compared to the same month in 2020, it added.

"In October, we saw a month-on-month decline in hiring activities by three per cent. This is a yearly trend we observe following festive hiring hikes.

"It is encouraging to see the travel and tourism industry dust off from the pandemic impact and truly pave its way to revival. We also see promising back-to-office trends with increasing automation and a huge spike in demand for office supplies," Sekhar Garisa, chief executive officer of Monster.Com, a Quess company.

Moreover, the recruitment space is looking up for entry-level talent as more and more organisations are looking to hire freshers, he added.

The Monster Employment Index is a monthly broad and comprehensive analysis of online job posting activity conducted by Monster India.

The Index further showed that as more and more organisations continue to resume work in physical offices and increasing automation efforts, the office equipment or automation (30 per cent) industry witnessed the highest month-on-month rise in job postings, followed by the reviving travel and tourism (7 per cent) and telecom or ISP (5 per cent) industries.

Industries such as banking, financial services, insurance (4 per cent), IT-hardware and software (3 per cent), advertising, market research, public relations (2 per cent), education (2 per cent) and retail (1 per cent) also showed a positive monthly uptick, according to the Index.

Most industries continue to retrieve hiring numbers. Few sectors such as shipping and marine (-11 per cent), healthcare, biotechnology and life sciences, pharmaceuticals (-3 per cent), production and manufacturing (-1 per cent), media and entertainment (-1 per cent) and BPO or ITeS (-1 per cent) witnessed a month-on-month decline in job postings in October.

It added that with the continuing revival of the travel and tourism industry in October, hiring for professionals in hospitality and travel (5 per cent) witnessed the highest month-on-month growth in October 2021. It is followed by occupations such as senior management (4 per cent), HR and admin (3 per cent), arts/ creative (2 per cent), finance and accounts (1 per cent) and customer service (1 per cent).

Software, hardware telecom, engineering/ production, and marketing and communications witnessed muted growth in October. Purchase, logistics, supply chain (-5 per cent), legal (-4 per cent), sales and business development (-3 per cent) and health care (-2 per cent) saw a monthly decline in the job posting activity.

According to the data from the index, professionals in marketing and communication were seen more in demand in Kolkata with a 13 per cent month-on-month growth.

In October, trends indicate that tier-2 cities such as Coimbatore (3 per cent) and Jaipur (1 per cent) witnessed the highest monthly growth in job postings.

Hyderabad, Kochi, Mumbai, and Delhi-NCR, which previously witnessed a dip in hiring activity, have stabilised in the month.

However, despite festive hiring demand, cities such as Kolkata (-5 per cent), Bengaluru (-2 per cent), Pune (-2 per cent), Chandigarh (-1 per cent), Ahmedabad (-1 per cent) and Chennai (-1 per cent) witnessed a monthly decline in the job posting activity, it added.