2018 may be a good year for the talent market. As the year of massive layoffs and retrenchments is coming to an end, India Inc is ready to kickstart the New Year with better plans for the talent of the country. 

Even before the start of the next year, India Inc has some good news as pay hikes are expected to be in the range of 10-15 percent. 

Speaking to the media about the positive job market, the co-founder of Teamlease Services, Rituparna Chakraborty shared with media, 

"2018 is set to swing the pendulum further into the job growth zone. Businesses in almost all sectors -- notably, financial services, retail and e-commerce and media and entertainment -- are looking to hire talent at an even faster pace.”

The hiring sentiment in 2017 was somewhat negative. For instance, TeamLease Employment Outlook Report for the period April 2017 to September 2017, reported dip of 6 points in overall employment outlook for India Inc. 

And now experts are hopeful about the recovery of recruitment landscape which is expected to continue as companies in mobile manufacturing, Fintech and start-ups, among others, may hire the most in 2018.

The only major challenge for these companies is finding the right talent. While work towards skill building and employability continue to be supported by the government and industry, companies still lag in getting that “right talent” they are looking for. As per the Workplace Agility Barometer Report,  the lack of available talent was highlighted as a major challenge in attracting talent by 52% of the respondents. 

For Telecom and IT industry, it was a year of disruption. As things are beginning to settle the hiring trends are expected to improve. 

The aggressive hiring trend is already evident in the Campus Hiring zone. For instance, the first phase of the 2017-18 placement season at IIT-Kharagpur has seen over 1,000 offers by both Indian and global corporates. In addition to this, recent news shows the hiring trends moving forward. Samsung India is set to increase its hiring by 25% and other top employers hiring in 2018 include Cognizant, ICICI Bank, Deloitte, Capgemini, Wipro, Amazon, EY, HC Tech, Accenture and KPMG. 

As per OECD Economic Outlook report, economic growth is projected to strengthen to above 7%, gradually recovering from the transitory adverse impact of rolling out the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and measures to choke off the black economy, including demonetization. The report also mentions that it is necessary to ensure an inclusive growth, creating more and better quality jobs, for both women and men.