Hiring in India during April dips by 62% due to lockdown to curb coronavirus: Report

The nationwide lockdown due to the spread of COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in 62 per cent decline in hiring activities in April compared to the same month last year, according to a report.

Hiring activities dropped to 951 last month from 2,477 in April 2019, according to the Naukri JobSpeak Index.

For latest updates and live news on coronavirus, click here

The April 2020 decline in hiring is led by sectors like hotel/restaurant/travel/airlines (-91 per cent), auto/ancillary (-82 per cent), retail (-77 per cent) and accounting/finance (-70 per cent).

The Naukri JobSpeak is a monthly Index which calculates and records hiring activity based on job listings on Naukri.com website.

CORONAVIRUS SPECIAL COVERAGE ONLY ON DH

New jobs for professionals in the ticketing/travel/airlines, hotel/restaurants and HR/administration sectors witnessed a dip of 95 per cent, 89 per cent and 78 per cent, respectively.

Functional roles in purchase/supply chain (-70 per cent), marketing/advertising (-69 per cent), sales/business development (-69 per cent) and accounts/finance (-68 per cent) also witnessed a steep decline.

However, new jobs for professionals in the IT-software (-51 per cent), BPO/ITES/KPO (-54 per cent) pharma/biotech/healthcare (-57 per cent) and teaching/education (-56 per cent) sectors were less impacted as compared to other sectors in April 2020.

The job market across cities registered a double-digit dip in hiring mainly led by metros where Delhi dipped by 70 per cent followed by Chennai (-62 per cent), Kolkata (-60 per cent) and Mumbai (-60 per cent).

There was an across the board decline in hiring at varied experience levels with the entry-level experience bands (0 to 3 years) witnessing the sharpest decline of 67 per cent.

“The disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact the hiring activities leading to a 62 per cent decline in April' 2020. While hotel/restaurant/travel/airlines have been significantly impacted, industries like IT-software/software services, pharma/biotech/clinical research and insurance have been less impacted,” Naukri.com Chief Business Officer Pawan Goyal added.