73% Employers Eagerly Hiring In White-Collar Jobs: Indeed Report | NDTV Profit

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Transcript
00:00Are we finally seeing some signs of recovery in the white-collar jobs market?
00:05To help us understand the state of formal jobs, we're in conversation with Sashi Kumar, Head of Sales at Online Job Portal.
00:13Indeed. Mr. Kumar, thank you so much for taking time out to speak to us.
00:18Thank you. Wonderful speaking to you, Pallavi.
00:20So, you know, it's been a difficult last year for job seekers, the last fiscal.
00:25We saw premier institutes in engineering and management, for instance,
00:29struggling to place their students. That, of course, reflected in the broader markets as well.
00:34It was difficult, especially for freshers, but the repercussions were felt across the board.
00:40So, you know, to begin with, I do want to understand where we are at currently in comparison.
00:46Would it be safe to say that we are seeing signs of some improvement?
00:52Yes, most definitely. The short answer is yes, we are seeing signs of improvement.
00:56But we'll have to understand why last year happened and what were some of the drivers behind what happened last year.
01:02So in 2021-22, the year one year ahead, there was a significant increase in hiring,
01:08specifically in the IT sector, which sort of dominates a lot of the fresher hiring activity in India.
01:13We saw hiring increase by about 20-21 percent.
01:17And the next year, because of war, because of inflation and general softness in business,
01:21we saw a significant decline by about 18-20 percent.
01:26What we are seeing this year is a steady increase. It's definitely not gone back to where it was in the past.
01:33But we've seen a good increase in hiring by about 8-10 percent,
01:38primarily on the back of increased demand for generative AI, cybersecurity and cloud computing.
01:45I do want to ask you if the improvement is across experience levels and also your forward guidance on whether we can expect this improvement to sustain.
01:57I think the increase has been more sustained in the lateral levels rather than the fresher levels.
02:04We're still seeing improvements happening in fresher hiring, but definitely not to the extent we've seen it in lateral levels.
02:11So I think it was only yesterday that Infosys news came out about Infosys hiring about 1,000 freshers that they had given offers to in the past.
02:19So it's improving there as well. But most of the improvement is being driven by lateral hiring in the IT space.
02:27Okay. All right. So lateral hiring in the IT space is what's possibly one of the sort of indicators in the job market.
02:35That's the one sector that is seeing definite signs of improvement.
02:39I also do want to ask you about the gig economy. We are almost at the start of the festive season.
02:48In fact, it's broadly started. That does give some sort of a temporary flip at least to the job space.
02:55So what's that looking like this year around?
02:59So, in fact, this year is significantly good news.
03:01We are seeing at least a 20% increase in hiring around festive roles for festive season over last year.
03:08And what has been striking is that Tier 2 cities have been significantly driving this.
03:14So if you were to look at growth in festive season hiring, cities like Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi and Kolkata, we've seen an 18% increase.
03:24But for the first time, we are seeing Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities like Nagpur, Jaipur, Vadodara, etc.
03:29seeing somewhere between 22 to 25% increase in hiring.
03:34So I think good news on the festive hiring front.
03:38Okay. All right. And, you know, just help me understand.
03:41Does this sort of also speak of the broader economy and in turn the prospects for white collar jobs going forward?
03:51We have seen, in fact, just today, the RBI governor speaking about resilience in the economy, you know, staying on.
03:59The RBI does expect growth to once again exceed 7%.
04:03These are all good signs for the broader job market as well, right?
04:08No, absolutely. There are very good signs for the broader job market.
04:11I think increase in hiring before the festive season is a sign that most companies expect to have a sort of bumper festive season sale.
04:20So obviously there will be downstream effects around white collar roles as well.
04:25And even within white collar, we've seen that sales, customer service roles have seen a significant increase in demand.
04:32So I think definitely a good sign for the economy.
04:36Okay. And one last question before we can let you go, Mr. Kumar.
04:40Amidst all of this, we are still seeing mixed cues from the international front.
04:47We're still talking about chances of some kind of a slowdown, possibly even a recession in America.
04:53How mild it is or it isn't, that's something that remains to be seen.
04:58But that's also bound to continue to pose sort of a downward risk to the job sector in India as well, right?
05:05So how do you sort of piece together the entire picture at this stage?
05:09So, yes, there are uncertainties in the global market, which is why the recovery, specifically in the IT sector,
05:15which is most impacted by global and international trends, has been sort of uneven.
05:20We will get more clarity as we go by. We've got elections in the United States later this year, early next year.
05:27The economy and all of that, how that shapes up will significantly depend on how much the hiring,
05:34specifically in IT, will go up over the next six to 12 months.
05:38All right. Thanks a lot for taking time out for us, Mr. Kumar.
05:41And we hope to touch base with you soon enough again.
05:44Thank you, Pallavi. Have a good day.

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