White-collar hiring activity in India grew by 12% in July when compared to the same month last year, according to the latest Naukri JobSpeak Index.

India’s white-collar hiring activity grew to 2,877 job postings in July 2024, registering a 12% year-on-year increase compared to 2,573 during the corresponding month last year.

The Naukri JobSpeak is a monthly index representing India’s job market and hiring activity based on new job listings and job-related searches by recruiters on the CV database of Naukri.com.

Most sectors reported double-digit growth on a year-on-year basis, with pharma/biotech (26%), FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) (26%), real estate (23%), and AI-machine learning (47%) leading the way, the report showed.

However, the report said, the growth could be due to the impacted base of July 2023, when there was an atypical dip in hiring activity on account of IT sector’s woes.

The IT sector experienced a 17% uptick in July, compared to the year-ago period.

Meanwhile, the report showed the state of Gujarat continued to lead the pack with its cities of Rajkot, Jamnagar and Baroda recording 39%, 38% and 25% growth, respectively.

“The robust 12% growth in hiring activity is a much-awaited, encouraging sign for this financial year. This is the first month this year that we have seen positive growth, and the fact that it is secular, cutting across sectors and geographies, makes it truly promising. This broad-based, positive shift could potentially be the onset of an upcycle in the Indian white-collar job market,” Naukri Chief Business Officer Pawan Goyal told the Press Trust of India.

Meanwhile, according to the Economic Times, for the first time in 2024, hiring across all experience levels showed growth. Fresher hiring which has been heavily subdued for a while, saw 7% year-on-year growth. Two sectors, finance (28%) and medical (22%), have contributed to this recovery in the fresher’s job market.