White-collar hiring in India witnessed 3 per cent decline in June as sectors such as IT, Retail, BPO, Education, FMCG and Insurance also showed cautious hiring sentiments, a report said on Monday.

According to the Naukri JobSpeak Index, on a year-on-year basis, June witnessed a 3 per cent decline with 2,795 job postings compared to 2,878 in June 2022. On a month-on-month basis, the job postings fell by 2 per cent.

The Naukri JobSpeak is a monthly Index representing the state of the Indian job market & hiring activity based on new job listings and job-related searches by recruiters on the resume database of Naukri.com.

"The white collar job market of India is witnessing a structural shift. For a long time, jobs in the tech sector and in top metros were the key drivers of white collar job growth.

"Of late, jobs in the emerging sectors such as real estate, oil and gas, pharma and BFSI have emerged as significant contributors to job growth," Naukri.com Chief Business Officer Pawan Goyal added.

As per the report, the IT industry hiring continued to remain an area of concern, with a 31 per cent decline in new jobs created compared to June last year.

The decline in hiring was prominent across all types of IT companies, including global tech giants, large IT services companies, tech-focused start-ups and unicorns, the report noted.

While traditional roles such as Software Developers and System Analysts continued to witness a downturn, niche roles such as Cybersecurity Analysts and AI Specialists showed positive hiring trends, bucking the negative trend across most other tech roles, said the report.

Besides IT, sectors such as Retail, BPO, Education, FMCG and Insurance also showed cautious hiring sentiments.

However, the report revealed that the Oil and Gas sector continued its bull run with 40 per cent growth in new jobs compared to June last year in line with the rapid refinery expansion and supporting roles to meet the increased domestic and export demand.

Similarly, the Pharma sector surged with a 14 per cent growth in new jobs compared to June last year.

Automobile, Hospitality, and Banking were some of the other sectors witnessing positive hiring sentiments.

The Naukri JobSpeak Index also found that diversification of white-collar jobs to non-metro cities continued apace.

Ahmedabad topped the list with an unprecedented 23 per cent growth in employment compared to June last year, followed by Vadodara with 14 per cent growth, while Jaipur continued to hold steady.

On the other hand, it said, hiring activity continued to dip across large IT-driven metros, except Mumbai, which held steady compared to June 2022, primarily driven by the Oil and Gas and Hospitality sector.

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