Job search by young graduates and entry-level candidates in India has hit a record high as companies across several sectors increasingly narrow their hiring funnel for fresh graduates, reports The Economic Times, citing data from staffing firms including Xpheno and professional networking site LinkedIn. About 2.6 million entry level freshers were actively seeking job openings over the last 30 days, shows data from LinkedIn and other top job boards. The typical volume of active entry level job seekers in a 30-day window is in the 1.0-1.2 million range usually, according to estimates from specialist staffing firm Xpheno. The last three days alone had about 800,000 entry-level job seekers, 600,000 of them freshers, data showed.

"The slow consumption by key talent segments and the flatlining of the active demand have a major impact on fresher intake," said Anil Ethanur, co-founder, Xpheno. "The current volume of demand for fresher and entry-level talent is 50% of the volume that was in play during the buoyant 2021.” The jobs available on popular job boards and professional networking portals show openings for young graduates and fresher talent in the white-collar job market in the 50,000-60,000 range at the end of September. Overall fresh graduate absorption, with a long tail across industries (including sectors that consume talent in smaller numbers), is sub-200,000 over the last 15-month period, data showed. In the peak of the hiring season in FY22, the IT sector alone net added about 600,000 fresh graduates.