Hiring activity in India's white-collar professional segment reported a decrease of 3% in June 2023 when compared to the same period a year ago, according to the latest Naukri JobSpeak Index.

The Naukri JobSpeak Index, which describes itself as one of most accurate measures of hiring in India based on approximately one million jobs per month, stood at 2,795 in June 2023. This is a 3% decline compared to June 2022 and 2% decline compared to May 2023.

The oil & gas sector saw 40% growth in new jobs compared to June last year. This is in line with the rapid refinery expansion and supporting roles to meet the increased domestic and export demand. The key roles witnessing maximum hiring include exploration engineers, refinery operations managers, and health, safety, and environment specialists, predominantly in Ahmedabad, Mumbai, and Delhi NCR regions. Hiring in this sector skewed toward professionals with mid-level experience.

The real estate sector reported 17% growth in new jobs creation compared to June last year. The pharma sector recorded 14% growth in new jobs compared to June last year.

Automobile, hospitality, and banking were some of the other sectors witnessing positive hiring sentiments, with 12%, 11%, and 11% growth in the new jobs created compared to June last year.

IT industry hiring continued to remain an area of concern, with a 31% decline in new jobs created compared to June last year, the Index showed. The decline in hiring was prominent across all types of IT companies, including global tech giants, large IT services companies, tech-focused start-ups, and unicorns. Hiring dipped across all metros and non-metros, with IT-dependent metro cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, and Pune being hardest hit.

Besides IT, sectors such as retail, BPO (business process outsourcing), education, FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods), and insurance also showed cautious hiring sentiments with a dip of 23%, 17%, 9%, 9%, and 7%, respectively, in hiring trends compared to June last year.

According to the Index, diversification of white-collar jobs to non-metro cities continued at pace. Ahmedabad topped the list with 23% growth in employment compared to June last year, followed by Vadodara with 14% growth, while Jaipur continued to hold steady. Auto, construction, and pharma sectors played a significant role in driving this hiring spree across non-metros.

On the other hand, hiring activity continued to dip across large IT-driven metros, except Mumbai, which held steady compared to June 2022, primarily driven by the oil & gas and hospitality sector. Despite a minor dip of 5% in overall white-collar hiring trends, Delhi NCR witnessed an employment surge in healthcare and electrical switchgear sectors.

Demand for senior professionals continues to soar high. Professionals with 13-16 years and 16+ years of experience witnessed an increase in new job openings of 18% and 38%, respectively, compared to June last year.

Pawan Goyal, Chief Business Officer of Naukri.com, said, "The white-collar job market of India is witnessing a structural shift. For a long time, jobs in the tech sector and in top metros were the key drivers of white-collar job growth. Of late, jobs in the emerging sectors such as real estate, oil and gas, pharma and BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance) have emerged as significant contributors to job growth”.

The Naukri JobSpeak Index 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 of Naukri.com.