India’s overall job market saw a decrease of 6% in September when compared to last year and an increase of 3% when compared to the previous month, according to the latest RecruiteX report by TimesJobs.

India’s IT/telecom and healthcare sectors emerged as top hiring sectors with a 3% rise each for September 2017 when compared to the previous month. On a year-on-year basis, hiring in both sectors was up 8%. The Travel & Hospitality sector saw a 5% year-on-year rise in talent demand.

Demand for doctors and medical professionals grew by over 30% in Sep 2017, followed by hospitality and HR professionals with a 16% rise in demand, on a month-to-month basis.

Among key locations, Hyderabad posted the highest rise of 13% in talent demand, compared to the previous month. Within top metros, Bengaluru witnessed a rise of 6% in hiring activity followed by 5% rise in Chennai, on a month-to-month basis. The report’s year-on-year analysis showed that Ahmedabad posted a rise of 9% in talent demand. Among states, RecruiteX recorded a growth of 30% in Arunachal Pradesh and 19% in Andhra Pradesh, year-on-year.

“Amid the reports of mass layoffs, it’s exciting to see the growth in recruitment index for the IT sector. There is no doubt that volume of jobs has been impacted by automation, however, new jobs are also being created and some are also getting refurbished for which the larger focus is on re-skilling. The industry focus for fresh hires is mostly on niche skills around new digital tools and services,” Ramathreya Krishnamurthi, Business Head, TimesJobs, said.

The report also showed that senior management hiring grew the most, with jobs for over 10 years of experience witnessing an average rise of 3% in September 2017 when compared with August 2017. In year-on-year analysis the hiring for 10-20 years of experience bracket rose by 10% and for over 20 years of experience the demand increase was 4% for the September 2016-September 2017 period.