Slowdown hits online hiring activity

Online hiring activity registered a decline of nearly 4% in July over the same month a year ago amid weak economic conditions, according to a research by job portal Monster.com. 

On a month-to-month basis, the index witnessed even a sharper decline as it was down by 6.10% to 123 in July from 131 it registered in June. 

"The decline in annual growth is reflective of the prevailing challenging economic conditions. Keeping in mind the uncertain economic/ political scenario, companies are adopting a cautious approach while hiring which is reflected in the index," Monster.com (India/ Middle-East/South-East Asia) Managing Director Sanjay Modi said. 

A sectoral analysis shows that 12 of the 27 industry sectors monitored by the Monster Employment Index registered expansion in online recruitment activity between July 2012 and July 2013. 

While hiring in telecom/ISP sector improved by 20% followed by BPO/ITeS sector (up 18%), chemicals/ plastic/ rubber, paints, fertiliser/ pesticides (down 13%) showed steepest annual decline. 

Online demand improved in six of 13 occupational groups monitored by the Monster Employment Index between July 2012 and July 2013. 

The most substantial annual gains amongst occupational groups was registered in customer service (up 18 per cent) followed by hospitality and travel (up 10%). 

Among occupation groups, senior management exhibited the steepest annual decline (down 56%).

Online recruitment activity was up on the year in six of 13 locations monitored by the index. 

Kolkata (up 21%) followed by Chandigarh (up 15%) led all cities in annual growth, while, among major metro-areas, Kolkata (up 21%) followed by Hyderabad (up 2%) registered the highest annual growth. 

The Monster Employment Index India is a monthly gauge of online job posting activity based on a real-time review of millions of employer job opportunities culled from a large representative selection of career Web sites and online job listings across India.

IT sector to hire 1.20 lakh this year: Experts

The country's IT & ITeS industry would generate as many as 1.20 lakh jobs this year even as campus hiring is likely to remain subdued, experts say.

While there has been a drop in campus hiring in IT sector as the industry reels under a economic downturn in the West, jobs added this year will see large hiring from the market.

"Last year, the campus hiring numbers had dipped from the normal and this year, it is not going to be any different. We estimate that there will be around 1,20,000 jobs created this year," talent assessment company Merit Trac Head of Innovation and Corporate Business Rajeev Menon said.

The IT sector is set to grow by 12 to 14 per cent this year, as per Nasscom estimates.

Over the years, large IT companies have relied on campus hiring for large scale recruitment. However, since 2008, these companies have been trying hard to adjust to changing economic and business landscape and campus hiring has been impacted.

Last year, around 1.8 lakh graduates were placed in the IT sector. The number, however, is expected to be 30 per cent less this year.

The changing economic scenario is the most compelling reason why hiring from campuses are reducing and these are causing inconsistencies in the business demand which is reflecting in hiring - particularly at the entry level.

Commenting on the trends, executive search firm GlobalHunt MD Sunil Goel said: "Expectations from the campuses also have gone down as experienced resources are easily available at the similar price. So, the companies are preferring to hire from the market than going to campuses with larger reasons to drop in campus hiring."

Campus hiring has been under stress amid rising number of candidates seeking employment. For example, in 2005 there were 365,000 graduates in IT sector but the same stands at around 1.3 million graduates in 2012.

Some of the service domains within IT like e-commerce, social media, mobile banking are showing consistent growth.

The India IT-ITES sector faced strong headwinds in 2012-13 due to global economic slowdown and muted spending in North America and Europe, which accounts for as much as 80 per cent of Indian IT companies' revenues.