Hiring Demand Continues In Hospitality, Pharma, AI in Dec 2023: Report
Naukri JobSpeak Index, the premier job index for white collar hiring in India, stood at 2439 for December 2023, up 2% compared to November 2023, and down 16% from December 2022. The major sectors that witnessed job growth in December 2023 were Hospitality and Pharma. New job offers for AI stood out with 5% growth in the latest month as against the corresponding month of 2022.
Hospitality, Pharma Witness Optimistic Hiring Trends
The hospitality sector continued its growth momentum in new job offers with a 4% increase in hiring as compared to December 2022. The job growth for this sector is highest in the cities of Mumbai and Delhi NCR. Senior professionals with over 16 years of experience emerged as the most sought-after candidates for hiring in the sector.
The Pharma sector saw an increase in hiring of 2% in December 2023 as compared to the corresponding month of 2022. There has been a renewed focus on R&D in the Pharma sector which has led to its growth and jump in placements. The sector experienced maximum growth in new job offers in the cities of Ahmedabad, Vadodara, and Mumbai. Professionals with 16 years of experience or more saw the highest demand from the industry in the sector. Senior Marketing Managers and Store Manager job roles witnessed decent hiring in December 2023.
Although the new job offers in the Oil & Gas sector were not spectacular in December 2023, it stayed at the same level as witnessed in December 2022. In the cities of Ahmadabad and Delhi NCR however, there was a spurt in hiring in the sector. Industrial Relations, Maintenance Engineer, Maintenance Head, and Operations Manager were the job roles that were in demand in the sector in December 2023.
Sectors like BPO, Education, Retail, and Healthcare were some of the major sectors that displayed cautious hiring sentiments, declining by 17%, 11%, 11%, and 10% respectively in job offers in December as against the corresponding month of 2022.
Hiring in the IT sector displayed similar trends as seen in the most of second half of 2023. It declined by 21% in December 2023 as against the same month of 2022 and by 4% as compared to the immediately preceding month of November 2023. Full Stack Data Scientist, IT Infrastructure Engineer, and Automation Engineer were some of the job roles that saw decent hiring despite a cautious job market for the IT industry.
Non-metros Outshine Their Bigger Counterparts
The non-metros outshined the metros in terms of hiring in December 2023. Vadodara registered a growth of 3% in new job offers in the latest month as against the same month of 2022. This growth is noticeably better than the metros where Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune and Kolkata registered declines of 24%, 23%, 23%, 17% and 16%, respectively, in new job offers.
Senior Professionals Continue To Be Favourites
Senior professionals continued to be in demand in the latest month, in line with the trend seen in most of 2023. The hiring for professionals boasting over 16 years of experience witnessed an 8% jump in hiring in December 2023 over the same month of 2022. However, job offers for professionals falling in the experience categories of 13-16 years, 8-12 years, and 4-7 years corrected by 2%, 12%, and 23% respectively. For freshers, new offers recorded negative growth of 16% in the latest month over the same month of 2022.
Dr. Pawan Goyal, Chief Business Officer of Naukri.com, comments, "We observe marginal sequential growth of 2% in December hiring activity compared to November, driven by Non-IT sectors. However, the IT sector continued to be significantly impacted pulling the overall index down vs last year signaling a longer wait for a complete recovery in IT hiring”.
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