Fresh employment made in the country through staffing firms declined from 2.3 lakh in 2021-22 to 1.77 lakh in 2022-23, mainly because of a global slowdown, an apex body representing the manpower outsourcing industry said on Tuesday.

The Indian Staffing Federation’s (ISF) annual “Flexi Staffing Industry Employment Trend Report” said that staffing companies witnessed a 14 per cent growth in net employment in 2022-23 against a 21.9 per cent growth in 2021-22.

Net employment refers to the total number of people working through this mode of employment. This number was nearly 14.4 lakh in March this year, up from 12.63 lakh in March 2022 and 10.36 lakh in March 2021, the report said.

ISF president Lohit Bhatia said the 120 staffing companies that are members of the federation recruit employees on contract for big companies in sectors such as information technology, manufacturing, e-commerce, healthcare, retail, banking and energy.

A recruit signs a contract with the ISF member company hiring him or her as its employee, but has to work at the workplace of the big company.

Bhatia said that net employment in the IT industry, which was about 60,000 in 2021-22, had witnessed a six per cent decline in 2022-23.

“There is a global slowdown. During the Covid period, the IT sector was growing. But the global slowdown in IT hiring impacted new recruitment in India,” he said.

Bhatia said that recruitment in sectors such as manufacturing, retail, consumer goods, e-commerce and banking had recorded better growth than the previous year.