Amidst the rise in the pace of vaccination, hiring across companies in India is limping back to normalcy. And it is not just the IT sector that is hiring; a pick-up is now being seen even in the non-IT space.
Hiring consultants told Moneycontrol that with the Covid-19 lockdown being eased across the country, sectors such as banking/financial services, automobile and hospitality are seeing a recovery.
Overall, there has been close to 20-25 percent growth in jobs since the second wave in April 2021. However, hiring experts also maintained that there is slight caution being exercised over fears of a Covid-19 resurgence.
Who is hiring?
While the Information Technology (IT) sector led hiring growth even during the second wave, even the non-IT sectors have resumed recruitment.
Sanjay Shetty, Director – Professional Search & Selection and Strategic Accounts, Randstad India, said that recruitment activity in India has been steadily increasing since June 2021.
“Sectors like IT/ITes, BFSI, hospitality, e-commerce and automobile have started to show signs of a recovery after the government reduced restrictions and local lockdowns in many parts of the country,” he said.
Even the worst affected sectors, such as travel and tourism, will gradually recover by the end of this quarter, according to Shetty.
This is key primarily because the travel/tourism sector has been affected the most by Covid-19. Business travel was curtailed and leisure travel was indefinitely postponed. However, reports indicate that short trips to places such as Goa, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand are popular, a factor that may boost jobs in this sector.
During the peak of Covid-19, the thrust was on short-term contracts since companies were not sure of the future business outlook amidst rising cases. This is now seeing a gradual change.
Lohit Bhatia, President, Workforce Management, Quess Corp, said that since June 2021, hiring activity has witnessed an increase across non-IT sectors, which were largely impacted by the second wave of Covid-19.
“This momentum has increased not only in weekly mandates, but also in terms of the tenure period. There has been an uptick in hiring for 6-12 months or longer, as opposed to short-term hiring (3 months and below), which clearly shows the returning confidence across industries and consumers,” he added.
So far, IT was the sector driving growth with large numbers. Moneycontrol had reported how India’s top 10 IT companies together hired 1.21 lakh people in the six months ended June 2021.
This is the highest for this period in the last five years, as the Covid-19 pandemic has created robust demand for software services.
Computing skills draw big numbers
Young professionals entering the workforce are in high demand across companies. Here, those with software and computing skills continue to draw the fat paychecks.
Singh of TeamLease Services said that Covid-19 has emphatically escalated the skills gap. Here, companies right now see demand in skills largely scattered in the technology arena: cloud computing, analytical reasoning, digital marketing, artificial intelligence, end-to-end product management, deep learning, systems thinking.
In 2020, there was a massive layoff across sectors such as entertainment (theatres) and high-street retail due to malls and movie chains being shut across the country.
However, the unlock phase is boosting the job market. Quess Corp’s Bhatia said that there is emerging demand in hospitality, cinemas, and consumer facing industries such as retail as more and more States and municipalities are allowing higher footfalls across malls and organised retail.
“Skills like sales (both on-field and in-shop), production & logistics supply chain, warehouse management, delivery personnel, and customer care executives have witnessed an increase in demand,” said Bhatia.
There is a preference for younger workers or Gen Z (those under 25 years) among most companies.
“The share of the Gen Z workforce has increased considerably, by five times, from what it was back in 2018,” said Randstad India’s Shetty.
He added that Gen Z workers have either software/hardware skills or disruptive digital skills and are about two to four times more likely to be hired by top employers.
Job roles such as Artificial Intelligence Specialist (BPO and IT-enabled services), Augmented Reality Expert (e-commerce and technology startups), Master Edge Computing (Information Technology and Knowledge Services), Digital Imaging Leader (Retail), IT Infrastructure Engineer , SQL Analyst, UI Designer, Software Test Specialists are among the popular ones.
Randstad Talent Trends Report shows that Java leads as the in-demand skill of choice across experience levels in the IT sector. Here, 18 percent of all IT jobs are at the junior level, 25 percent at mid-level and 65 percent at the senior level.
But, what about attrition?
Layoffs have been halted. But with the job market picking up pace, voluntary attrition/job switches by employees have become common.
At an all-India level, the attrition rate ranges between 8-10 percent. Bhatia said that attrition rates are much higher in the IT sector, and there has been very strong demand for talent both from IT companies as well as captives.
Moneycontrol had reported on how Cognizant is facing a historic high in its attrition rate. For the June quarter, the company’s attrition zoomed to 31 percent, of which 29 percent was voluntary attrition. The good news here is that company plans to make 100,000 lateral hires this year alone to backfill attrition.
Poaching by competitors is a reason why attrition has stayed at 9-10 percent, said Shetty.
There is a war for talent. Moneycontrol had reported about engineers being offered astronomical pay packages with companies almost bidding to hire talent.
Technology is shaping hiring
Deval Singh, Business Head, Telecom, IT& ITes, Media and Government, TeamLease Services, said that there are some striking technology trends shaping hiring, including online assessments. These are done through ATS (associate tracking system) in the first round to avoid long queues of interviews or interviewees.
Singh also said that businesses have adopted virtual interviewing software to hire candidates. The entire process is managed online with higher transparency and better effectiveness.
Similarly, offline onboarding has been replaced by app-based processes that collect documents digitally and also conduct background verification.
Moneycontrol had reported earlier on how online onboarding has been the preferred mode to prevent the risk of infection.
Are companies ready for 100 percent office attendance?
According to the Randstad Employer Brand Research 2021, which included 190,000 participants across the world, it was revealed that 52 percent of employees prefer working remotely than going back to office again.
Shetty said that more than 84 percent of those who work from home said they felt ‘more loyal’ because of the way their company managed the Covid-19 crisis.
Vaccination is now slowly becoming a mandatory requirement across all workplaces. It is anticipated that companies will go back to 100 percent physical office attendance by the December quarter, if the third wave doesn’t hit.
“Most companies have started prepping for it — offices will open in India by Q3. Corporates are giving free vaccinations and conducting drives to ensure employees feel safe to come and work at the office,” said Singh.
Global majors such as Apple, Amazon, Twitter and Google have extended work-from-home till 2022.
However, not everyone wants to extend WFH. James Gorman, CEO of Morgan Stanley, told employees in the Wall Street top-dog’s New York offices to either get back to their offices by September “or else...”
Considering the fears of a third wave, companies in India are open to a hybrid work model for now, which involves WFH with 1-3 days' weekly office attendance.
Shetty said that with the scare of the third wave looming, companies are rethinking their return-to-office dates and exercising increasing caution.
What does the future hold?
Cautious optimism continues in India, be it in hiring or getting employees back to office.
Vaccination numbers are leading to a clear hiring revival, according to consultants.
On August 17, the Union Health Ministry said that India had administered more than 88.13 lakh Covid-19 vaccine doses over the previous 24 hours, the highest-ever vaccination level in a single day.
Cumulatively, 55,47,30,609 vaccine doses have been administered through 62,12,108 sessions across India, as per the provisional report as of 7 am on August 17.
“Hopefully, a lower than anticipated third wave of Covid-19 will further fuel demand across the frontline workforce, which could be the best since the pre-Covid period in Q3 of FY22,” said Bhatia.