White-collar job demand in April across India declined by 5% compared to the same month last year with 2,715 job postings, according to the latest Naukri JobSpeak Index published in the Press Trust of India.

The Naukri JobSpeak is a monthly index representing the state of the Indian job market and hiring activity based on new job listings and job-related searches by recruiters on the resume database on Naukri.com.

The JobSpeak Index showed that the IT industry saw a 27% decrease in hiring activity compared to April last year.

Besides IT, sectors such as BPO, EdTech and retail also registered a decline of 18%, 21% and 23%, respectively, it noted.

At the same time, active hiring in non-tech sectors such as real estate and BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance) mitigated the dip in IT sector hiring, the report added. The real estate sector spearheaded non-technology industries, witnessing a 21% upswing in recruitment compared to the same month of the previous year.

This growth predominantly resulted from an increase in new launches of residential and commercial properties across metropolitan areas, prompting hiring in key roles such as tender manager, construction engineer and civil engineer positions, it added.

Besides real estate, the sectors with high growth in hiring activity included the oil and gas sector registering 20% growth, the insurance sector with 13% growth and the banking sector with 11% growth compared to the same month the previous year.

Meanwhile, among the large metros, Kolkata, Pune and Hyderabad saw recruitment surges of 28%, 22% and 19%, respectively, in hiring for the real estate sector.

Demand for senior professionals with more than 16 years of experience increased by 30% compared to April last year, while the demand for 13-16 years of experience increased by 20%.

The demand for fresh graduates and professionals with 4-7 years of experience has declined compared to the same month last year, it added.

Among non-metro cities, Ahmedabad led hiring trends with a 28% growth in new job creation compared to last year, followed by Vadodara and Jaipur with 14% and 9% growth in new job creation, respectively.

Banking, auto and insurance sectors have primarily contributed to the hiring activity observed across the non-metro cities, while real estate and oil and gas were the other sectors witnessing positive hiring sentiment in the smaller cities, it said.

"The growth in April hiring activity was dominated by a few key sectors such as real estate, BFSI and oil and gas. While IT-focused metros exhibited a cautious hiring sentiment, emerging cities such as Ahmedabad and Vadodara continue to shine," Naukri.com Chief Business Officer Pawan Goyal said.