Hiring plans in India for the third (July-September) quarter of 2020 are the weakest since 2005, according to recent a survey.

The “Employment Outlook Survey” by workforce solution company ManpowerGroup found that net employment outlook for Q3 is 3 per cent, significantly lower than 12 per cent in the previous quarter.

Mining and construction, finance, insurance, and real estate sectors are expected to lead the job market. While, the most adversely impacted sector in India are the service sector and manufacturing sector.

The strongest hiring pace is recorded in the medium-sized organisations followed by the large-sized and small-sized organisations, revealed the results from a region perspective, north and south regions indicate a more positive outlook compared to the west and east.

“Corporate India is rationalising its workforce in response to the economic slowdown. It is indeed a ‘wait and watch’ game as organisations are gearing up for the post lockdown era where they anticipate an upsurge in demand,” Sandeep Gulati, Group Managing Director of ManpowerGroup India, said in a statement.

The survey was conducted over 34,000 employers across 43 countries and territories to forecast labor market activity in the July-September quarter of 2020. In India, around 700 employers were involved.

The encouraging news, however, is that India with an overall seasonally adjusted outlook of +5 percent features among the top four countries out of 44 that projected a positive hiring trend. The other three are Japan, China and Taiwan who have a Net Employment Outlook of +11 percent, +3 percent and +3 percent respectively for Q3, 2020.

Net Employment Outlook is derived by taking the percentage of employers anticipating total employment to increase and subtracting from this the percentage expecting to see a decrease in employment at their location in the next quarter.