Hiring activity in India decreased slightly by 2% in February 2023 when compared to February 2022, according to the latest Naukri JobSpeak Index.

The Naukri JobSpeak stood at 3,007 in February 2023, up by 9% against January 2023.

Pawan Goyal, Chief Business Officer, Naukri.com, said, “At an overall level, hiring activity has seen a sequential month on month growth of 9% in February, which is slightly higher than the pre-covid growth rate of 7%. The IT sector, which had been experiencing negative trends in the past three months, showed a sequential growth of 10% in this month's JobSpeak. This growth is an indicator of changing hiring sentiments within the IT space.”

Within the IT sector, on a monthly basis, demand for specialist roles such as Analytics Managers, Big Data Engineers, Cloud System Administrators, and Augmented Reality QA Testers, have increased by 29%, 25%, 21% and 20% respectively. The demand for DevOps and DevSec Engineers has increased by 19% and 18%, respectively. This has outpaced the demand for Data Scientists and Software Developers, which has increased by 17% and 11% respectively.

The number of new jobs in Real Estate, Hospitality, and Healthcare sectors saw double-digit sequential growth of 13%, 10%, and 10%, respectively in February 2023 over January 2023. Sectors such as Banking, BPO, and Retail, showed similar trends with the number of new jobs increasing by 9%, 7%, and 7%, respectively over previous month.

Among the top metros, Chennai (16%), Hyderabad (14%), Bengaluru (12%), and Pune (12%), owing to a significant presence of large IT companies, witnessed double-digit growth in hiring activity over the previous month.

On the other hand, Delhi/NCR and Mumbai witnessed single-digit sequential growth, driven primarily by Insurance and Banking sectors.

Meanwhile, among emerging cities, the number of new jobs in Coimbatore and Chandigarh increased robustly by 16% and 13% respectively.

By experience, recruitment of professionals falling in the '8-12 years' and 'more-than-16-years' of working experience brackets showed double-digit sequential growth at 12% and 11%, respectively. Those with 13-16 years’ experience saw growth of 9% while workers with 4-7 years’ experience saw hiring increase by 8%. At the same time, professionals with 0-3 years’ experience saw hiring rise by 5%.