Fresher hiring rose 6% in Feb, led by IT: Foundit
Credit: iStock Photo
Bengaluru: India’s job market continued its upward momentum in February 2025, with hiring growing 10% month-on-month (MoM), according to insights from jobs platform Foundit (formerly Monster APAC & ME) out on Thursday.
India’s fresh graduate or fresher job market saw hiring rise 6% MoM in February.
Among sectors, IT (hardware and software) continued to lead fresher hiring, doubling its share from 17% in 2024 to 34% in 2025. Next came recruitment agencies offering 8% of the fresher jobs, while the education and edtech sector’s share came to 6%.
Though the banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI) segment accounted for 7% of the fresher recruitments, it marked a year-on-year (YoY) decline from 9%. The sharpest shrinking of share was seen in the business processing outsourcing (BPO) and IT-enabled services, where it dropped from 12% to 5%.
Top roles for which freshers are being hired are IT (at a 26% share of fresher jobs), sales and business development (18%), and marketing and communications (11%).
Although, when it comes to salaries, it is actually animation and gaming, healthcare, and retail which show the highest YoY increase for freshers, at 15%, 8% and 8%, respectively.
However, the biggest hirer IT (software), along with e-commerce saw a decrease of 5% each in YoY salary growth. The biggest drop in fresher salaries was seen in the insurance and staffing industries, at 12%.
Another trend observed was the share of job listings prioritising competencies over qualifications rising from 4% in 2023 to 14% in 2025.