Talent demand in India’s formal jobs sector suffered a setback in April 2021 owing to the sudden surge in Covid-19 infection. Talent demand fell by 4% year-on-year and 16% month-on-month in April 2021, according to the latest recruitment index from TimesJobs RecruiteX.

Despite the overall year-on-year talent demand decrease, the talent demand trend for Apr 2020 - when the first Covid-19 wave hit India, vs April 2021, when the country is facing another wave, showed a double-digit growth in heavy duty sectors. Constructions and Petrochemicals saw 22% year-on-year growth in talent demand.

The year-on-year analysis showed that all high-volume sectors as BFSI, IT/Telecom and Automobiles saw growth.

“Most sectors were revving up their operations to resume full operations in April 21, however the widespread infection has cut this growth story short,” the report stated.

A further study of talent demand in Apr 2021 found that Retail and Projects/Infrastructure industries shed most talent demand (28% each) in a month-on-month analysis. Talent demand shrunk least in the IT/Telecom (10%), Healthcare (12%) and Automobiles (12%) sectors in March 2021 vs Apr 2021 comparison.

Location-wise, except Vadodara, all other cities shed talent demand with Mumbai noting the steepest decline of 18% in the monthly analysis.

Sanjay Goyal, Business Head TimesJobs and TechGig said, “Most sectors in India were opening up for operations in Apr 2021 but the Covid-19 surge threw everything out of gear. However, the year-on-year talent demand trends show that only three sectors (i.e. FMCG, Pharmaceuticals and Retail) noted a decline while all other sectors had an encouraging yearly growth with Construction/Cement and Petrochemicals sectors growing by 22% each. The month-on-month stats are of course in the red because of the Covid-19 resurgence.”