India’s white-collar job market delivered its strongest performance in February in recent years. The Jobspeak index of job platform Naukri.com increased by 12% year-on-year to 3,233, from 2,890 a year ago. The reason for this is the increase in recruitment in the IT sector and the continuous increase in AI roles.
There was a 23% month-on-month increase between January and February, which is much higher than the typical seasonal increase of 13-16% in these two months. Naukri’s Chief Business Officer Pawan Goyal said that the change of 23% between January and February is more than the old trend and the figures also prove it to be true. Recruitment in IT is on the rise again, and Indian multinational companies (MNCs) are increasingly investing in AI talent. Good strength is visible in the market in the new financial year.
Hiring in the IT sector grew 6% year-on-year, marking a turnaround after stagnation in recent quarters. However, the increase was in positions with higher salaries. Recruitment for posts with salary above Rs 20 lakh per annum increased by 19%, and for posts with salary above Rs 50 lakh per annum there was an increase of 45%. At the same time, the posts with annual salary less than Rs 20 lakh remained almost the same as before. Fresher recruitment in IT increased by 8%, mainly due to Indian IT MNCs, which registered a growth of 55%. Recruitment related to Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning in IT increased by 40%. AI/ML roles have grown 49% year-over-year across the job market. Indian MNCs’ overall hiring grew by 24%, but their AI/ML hiring grew by 82%, while for foreign MNCs the growth was 43%.
Non-IT sector also maintained overall growth
There was an increase of 28% in the insurance sector. This was followed by BPO/ITeS (22%), real estate (19%), hospitality and travel (15%) and retail (14%). The main reason for increase in recruitment in insurance was 62% increase of foreign MNCs and 71% increase of Indian MNCs. Recruitment of experienced professionals aged 13-16 years increased by 50% and positions with salary above Rs 20 lakh per annum increased by 55%. Talking about cities, recruitment in this sector increased the most in Pune (24%), Mumbai (20%) and Bengaluru (19%).
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