With the surge of Covid-19 cases leading to the nation-wide lockdown in India last year, the job market had started declining in March 2020. Due to this impact, there is a notable growth of 25% in hiring in March 2021 as compared to Mar 2020, according to the latest Naukri JobSpeak Index.

Job opportunities in the IT-Software (+42%), Medical/Hospital (+33%) and Retail (+24%) sectors showed year-on-year growth. However, the hospitality and travel sectors registered a decline of 11% in hiring against March 2020.

A majority of metro and non-metro cities in India saw growth in hiring activities except Mumbai, which saw a flat trend (0%) and Coimbatore, which saw a decline of 4%. Within the metros, Hyderabad (+46%) and Bangalore (+37%) led the growth in hiring in March 21. Tier-2 cities such as Chandigarh (+43%) and Ahmedabad (+40%) also saw an uptick in hiring activity over the year.

Meanwhile, demand for IT-Software professionals saw a leap of 53% in March 2021 versus the previous year. Furthermore, hiring for roles in the Marketing/Advertising (+37%) and HR/Administration (+36%) domains showed a notable uptick.

Hiring across experience bands saw an average increase of +32% in March 2021 with the 8-12 years band showing maximum growth.

When compared to February 2021, the Naukri JobSpeak Index for March 2021 recorded a 3% uptick and stood at 2,436 compared to the previous month’s 2,356.