White collar hiring in India trended downward for the two-month period ending November 2023 with a decrease of 12% compared to the same two-month period ending November 2022, according to the latest Naukri JobSpeak Index.

Naukri pointed to the Diwali festival as the reason it recorded data for the October-November 2023 period. The overall index stood at 2,433 for the combined October-November months.

The Oil & Gas sector recorded good momentum, clocking a 9% jump in hiring in the October-November period compared to last year. The growth can be attributed to the rapid expansion by energy companies and the setting up of new refineries across the country. Machine operator/machinist, instrumentation engineer, and maintenance head were some job roles that saw high demand in the sector, growing 39%, 25%, & 7% compared to the same two-month period in 2022.

The Pharma sector registered a 6% increase in new job offers in the October-November period of 2023 against the October-November period of 2022.

The steepest decline was seen in IT-Software/Software Services (-22%) followed by Education/Teaching/Training (-18%). 

Naukri also noted IT hiring activity has stabilised over the last six months, albeit at a lower baseline vs 2022, while key non-IT sectors still managed to grow in said period.

The non-metro cities outperformed the metros in terms of hiring. Vadodara clocked 9% growth in new job offers in the last two-month period compared to the same period in 2022. Ahmedabad stayed flat, performing at the same level in the October-November period of 2023 over the October-November period of 2022. Metros Delhi NCR and Mumbai clocked declines of 12% each. The IT-focused cities of Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, and Pune recorded decreases of 20%, 18%, 21%, and 18% in the October-November period of 2023 when compared to the October-November period of 2022.

Organisations continued to show a preference for senior professionals in terms of hiring, a trend seen in most of 2023. Hiring for senior professionals with more than 16 years of experience went up by 26% in the October-November period of 2023 against the October-November period of 2022.

For professionals falling in the experience category of 13-16 years, new job offers went up by 6%. For professionals falling in the experience category of 8-12 years and 4-7 years, hiring dipped by 6% and 22%, respectively. For freshers, new offers recorded negative growth of 13% in the latest two-month period over the same period of 2022.