White-collar hiring in India fell by 8% in February 2024 when compared to February 2023, according to the latest Naukri JobSpeak Index.

The Index stood at 2,780 for February 2024, up 13% compared to January 2024.

Hiring in the oil & gas sector increased by 21% in February 2024 compared to last year. At the same time, hiring in the Pharma sector recorded a 9% growth against the same time last year while hiring in FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) witnessed an increase of 7% in February this year as compared to the same month of 2023.

Hiring for niche AI related roles such as machine learning engineer and full stack AI scientist jumped a staggering 100% and 44%, respectively, in February 2024 vs last year.

Conventional Data Scientist role also continued to witness a 15% jump in hiring activity vs last year.

However, major sectors such as IT, BPO and Retail sectors, witnessed 15%, 12% and 6% declines in hiring trends respectively in February 2024 vs last year.

Non-metro cities continued to witness ever-increasing demand for new talent as hiring corrections continued in metro cities. To gauge this non-metro hiring spree at a deeper level, the Jobspeak index coverage has been expanded to 13 new emerging cities, in addition to six non-metro cities which were already getting reported.

Among the newly added non-metro cities, Raipur led the hiring trends with a 14% growth in new job creation compared to last year, followed by Surat, Jodhpur and Gandhinagar with 12%, 10%, and 8% growth in new job creation, respectively, in February 2024 vs last year, led by oil & gas, banking and auto sectors. Although metros witnessed a hiring dip at an overall level, certain specific sectors like oil & gas and pharma, did show positive hiring sentiments across various metro cities.

Senior professionals with more than 16 years of experience continued to witness maximum job offer rollouts. The hiring for this experience segment went up by 21% in February 2024 against last year. New job offers for professionals falling in experience category of 13-16 years went up by almost 7%. However, entry-level professionals witnessed a 15% decline in new job opportunities, compared to February 2023.

Dr. Pawan Goyal, Chief Business Officer of Naukri.com, said, "This month’s JobSpeak index underscores a transformative shift in India's hiring landscape, with remarkable hiring growth seen in oil & gas, pharma, and in AI sectors, against a backdrop of cautious optimism. This resilience, especially witnessed across newly added non-metro cities in JobSpeak index coverage, underscores the evolving contours of India's job market.”

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