Indian job market beat COVID-19 slump after two years, as hiring demand witnessed a 6% year-on-year growth in the month of March 2022, found the Monster Employment Index (MEI). 

Even as a marginal dip of 2.4 percent was witnessed in month-on-month hiring activity, owing to appraisal season, the Index remained positive from an annual perspective as recruitment activity continued across a broad range of sectors.

In the month of March 2022, online recruitment activity exceeded the year-ago level in 11 out of the 13 cities monitored by the index. All metros registered a double-digit growth on an annual basis.

Mumbai (up 21 per cent) led all the monitored cities for the first time on a yearly basis followed by Coimbatore (up 20 per cent), Chennai and Hyderabad (up 16 per cent each). E-recruitment activity in Bengaluru (up 15 per cent) charted a positive trend but weakened from previous months. While Pune recorded 12 per cent growth, Kolkata and Delhi-NCR registered a growth of 13 per cent each.

TN’s investment in SEZs and intent to grow into a deep tech Startup base has boosted demand for jobs in the two cities that have witnessed the emergence of leading fin-tech and SaaS start-ups. Flushed with investor money, Mumbai continues to rule as the financial capital with several fin-tech companies setting up base, boosting hiring in the market. Bengaluru and Pune are emerging as the secondary hubs for Fintech start-ups with several entrepreneurs wanting to tap into the latent tech talent available in the markets.

Hiring demand in March 2022 was driven by Banking/Financial Services and Insurance which showed remarkable improvement (up 37 per cent) followed by Telecom/ISP (up 17 per cent) and Production and Manufacturing (up 16 per cent). Additionally, Jobs rebounded for Hospitality & Travel (up 11%) personnel after a long time and experienced significantly improved demand levels annually.

However, engineering, cement, construction, and iron/ steel (down 20 per cent) continued to witness a year-on-year decline in the series since April 2020, registering the sharpest deceleration among sectors. The pace of the growth moderated further for Media & Entertainment (down 16 per cent) and FMCG, Food & Packaged Food (down 13 per cent) industry and slide down in March 2022 annually, according to MEI data.

In terms of Functions, IT-Hardware & software, HR & Admin along with Finance & Accounts job roles marked a double-digit growth in all metros. More and more organisations have hired top management level employees (up 34 per cent) followed by mid-senior level (up 22 per cent), intermediate level (up 20 per cent) and senior-level (up 13 per cent). Entry-level jobs witnessed a growth of 8 per cent on the back of campus hiring steeping in the JFM quarter.

In BFSI, roles in financial statement, wealth management, investment banking and cyber-security have seen increased job openings. In terms of Tech jobs, the emergence of Metaverse and its potential applications has created a lot of career opportunities in new skill areas.  While brands and enterprises continue to value creativity and human-centered design with tech-enabled applications, job roles such as Design Architects, Software Designers, System Validation Engineers, 3D Artists, AR/VR Maintenance and Support, and Design/Graphics Engineer are expected to be in high demand in the coming months.