News: Tech hiring in May'21 at an all-time high, crosses pre-COVID numbers: Naukri.com

Recruitment

Tech hiring in May'21 at an all-time high, crosses pre-COVID numbers: Naukri.com

Findings from the Naukri JobSpeak report reveal an all-time high demand for tech talent and significant Y-O-Y recovery in hiring across sectors and functional domains.
Tech hiring in May'21 at an all-time high, crosses pre-COVID numbers: Naukri.com

The much spoken about acceleration in digital adoption is reflecting its benefits for the labor market with a steep jump in hiring numbers. Naukri JobSpeak report revealed that May 2021 saw tech hiring at an all time high, recording a robust +14% growth in hiring, in comparison to  April 2021. Interestingly, in comparison to pre-COVID hiring sentiment of May 2019, May 2021 saw a 39% jump in tech hiring.

IT roles have seen aggressive hiring on the job portal in May'21. Some of the major drivers of the high tech talent demand include Accenture, Adobe, IBM, SAP, Oracle, Flipkart, Motorola, Nike, Udaan and Meesho.

“It is encouraging to see a much lesser impact of the second wave of the pandemic on the job economy versus last year. Even though the hiring activity declined by 15% in Apr’21 over Mar’21, we see hiring turning flat in May’21, signaling resilience and recovery,” said Naukri.com’s Chief Business Officer, Pawan Goyal. “With the year 2021 seeing a strong wave of hyper-digitization, the IT sector continues to drive hiring, recording a robust +14% sequential growth in May'21. In fact, hiring for tech roles is at an all-time high versus pre-COVID levels; growing at 39% in May'21 over May’19.”

Beyond tech, the education and teaching sector too witnessed a +7% growth, after months of continuous decline. Some of the top employers instrumental in the hiring boost include Byjus, Vedantu, Toppr and Unacademy. 

The hospitality (-41%) and retail (-20%) sector, along with non-essential offices suffered the brunt of shutdown once again with a sequential decline in hiring between April and May 2021. Other impacted sectors include banking/finance (-15%), FMCG (-13%) and BPO/ITES (-10%). 

The report found that major IT Hubs like Pune (+12%), Bangalore (+9%) and Hyderabad (+4%) saw an uptick in hiring activity in May'21 Vs Apri'21 led by tech talent demand.

With Maharashtra successfully containing the pandemic, hiring activity grew by +5% sequentially in Mumbai, while hiring in Delhi/NCR remained impacted and declined by 11% in the same period. Some of the tier-2 cities that remain impacted in hiring following the second wave include Jaipur (-19%), Vadodara (-9%) and Coimbatore (-5%). 

There is a visible uptick in demand for experienced professionals, with hiring activity for professionals with 8-12 years’ experience as well as over 16years of experience witnessing a jump of 4%. In contrast, the experience bracket of 0-3 years’ is seeing a consistent decline in sequential hiring over the past few months with the hiring declining by 7% for the segment in May '21. 

While tech talent demand witnessed an all-time high, the demand for several other roles including HR/Admin (-4%), Production/Quality (-22%), Sales/BD (-20%), Purchase/Logistics (-14%), ITES/BPO (-8%), and content/journalism (-8%) was impacted in May '21 sequentially. 

The Y-O-Y Hiring Deep-dive | May’21 Vs May’20

The volatile business environment following the intermittent nationwide lockdown and restrictions in the last twelve months brought about a severe fluctuation for the labor market. However, the numbers hint at accelerated recovery. The hiring activity grew by +125% in May’21 as compared to May’20. 

The scale of recovery is highest in the IT-software sector with a jump of over 200% in May'21, compared to May'20, surpassing May'19 numbers.

Other sectors reflecting a good Y-O-Y recovery in May’21 include  Retail (+143%), Auto/Ancillary (+108%) and Education/ Teaching (+105%). The Pharma/Biotech (+43%) sector, which remained afloat during the first wave of the pandemic saw proportionate Y-O-Y growth in May'21.

Within metros, Y-O-Y hiring was led by IT hubs including Pune (+217%), Hyderabad (+207%) and Bangalore (+187%). The hiring activity in Mumbai (+112%) and Delhi/NCR (+108%) grew relatively lesser during the same period owing to the pandemic impact. While the top six metros witnessed a hiring growth of +164% in May’21 Vs May’20, smaller cities saw slower overall growth of +91% as compared to metros with Ahmedabad (+171%) and Chandigarh (+108%) leading hiring in May'21 Vs May’20. 

Despite a sequential decline in May‘21, the Y-O-Y growth in demand for professionals in IT-Software (+207%), HR/Admin (+195%) and Banking/Insurance (+151%) was reassuring. Functions like Marketing (+64%) and Sales/BD (+47%) professionals weren’t in as much demand as per the Y-O-Y hiring trends. Hiring across experience bands saw an average increase of +114% in May'21 Vs May’20 with the 8-12 years’ experience band showing maximum growth.

With hiring experiencing a visible jump in numbers, this period remains crucial for businesses to not just hire the best talent, but also retain their best talent. The sharp contrast in hiring outlook between 2020 and 2021 is sure indicative of recovery and growth. However, how businesses leverage the prevailing hiring sentiment to fulfil their talent needs will determine their ability to outpace competitors.

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Topics: Recruitment, #Jobs

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