White-collar job listings rise, point to revival | Economic Times

June saw encouraging signs for job seekers as India's white-collar market registered a recovery with 270,000 active vacancies after a slump during the second wave of the Covid pandemic.The gradual unlocking of states and resumption of commercial activities boosted hiring by 32% in June from the previous month as the white-collar market added over 65,000 new jobs in 30 days, according to data from official company job pages on LinkedIn and direct postings on top job boards put together by staffing firm Xpheno.The job vacancy number for June, which emerged the strongest month for the fiscal, is more than twice that a year ago.Economists and job experts said that the numbers are indicative of a revival in sentiment in white-collar employment as the count of Covid infections has receded, vaccinations have picked up pace and consumer demand has gone back up."The speed and scale of recovery shows enterprise confidence and an overall positivity in the job market," said Xpheno cofounder Kamal Karanth. "June 2021 could well be the starting point of a buoyancy expected for the rest of the year." The top five metros - Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad - posted the highest-ever job count since the onset of the pandemic, with 125,000 openings in June. "The white-collar market is more positive now than it was last year and things appear to be on a path to normal," said Care Ratings chief economist Madan Sabnavis. But service sectors remain disrupted. Sabnavis, who is of the view that the Indian white-collar market had a jobs problem even before the pandemic, said: "It will take some time before the market gets back to the 2018 level. For that we have to make sure that the economy is on a growth path of 8-9% on a sustained basis."Top sectors that led the recovery were the ones that also account for a bulk of white-collar jobs, including information technology, IT-enabled services, ecommerce and platform-based companies, besides banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI). The IT services sector had over 92,000 active job openings in the month, up 37% from May.However, brick-and-mortar sectors such as automobiles, industrials, manufacturing, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) and consumer durables remained subdued."The pandemic has been a tailwind for companies in the ecommerce, healthcare and tech sectors that have continued to ramp up hiring right through the pandemic in blue collar," said TN Hari, head of HR at BigBasket."The white-collar teams have struggled to cope in the meanwhile, and now with a phased lag, these companies are ramping up white-collar hiring to manage the surge and grow new and adjacent businesses." The deal pipeline for most technology companies has been at a historic high over the past few months, said Nitin Bhatt, technology sector leader, EY India."With so much new business coming in, companies need people to serve the customers," Bhatt said.