Job market remains buoyant amid second Covid-19 wave

An estimated 2.90 lakh white-collar jobs were on offer by March-end

Even as the country witnesses a surge in infections amid the second Covid-19 wave, the active job count remained buoyant across the country during the last few months.

An estimated 2.90 lakh jobs were up for grabs across sectors at the end of March 2021, which is a growth of 12 per cent over the previous month. The count of active jobs during the month of February stood at 2.60 lakh. On a year-on-year basis, the closing figures for March 2021 is a remarkable 18 per cent higher than closing figures for March 2020, according to data analysed from the websites of various companies by Xpheno, a specialised staffing firm.

Some of the prominent employers with active openings for the month were Accenture India, Genpact India, Amazon, Paypal, Google, IBM, Microsoft, DELL, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Citi. Among the Indian companies, Postman, Ola, Byju’s, Swiggy, Udaan, Delhivery and Nykaa were prominent employers.

"With more enterprises embarking on a hybrid workforce and WFH-first working models, the remote opening slice is on a sharp upward movement. The IT Services sector led the pack and continued to add more active jobs to the market in March 2021," Kamal Karanth, Co-founder, Xpheno, told DH.

Active openings from the IT Services sector grew by a strong 17 per cent as compared to February 2021. At 88,000 active openings, the IT Services sector registered its highest count for the financial year. Active openings from the software sector registered a 6 per cent growth and breached the 1-lakh mark again after a brief dip in the previous month, Karanth said.

After a 6 per cent dip in February 2021, the Internet Enabled Services sector returned with a massive 12 per cent growth over the previous month. Active jobs in the BFSI sector with a 10 per cent growth came third in line.

As for growth in active job counts, the IT function closed at 1,25,000 after registering 1,10,000 in February 2021. The 14 per cent growth in IT function openings is an indicator of increased IT spend accompanied by investments in talent for executing and managing the spend.

Engineering openings grew to 72,000 as against 64,000 in January. Sales & Business Development openings also increased to 82,000 after remaining stagnant at 77,000 over the last two months.

The top five metros (Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai) collectively put out about 1 million active white-collar job openings over the last 12 months. At an average of 83,000 openings a month, these five metros contributed to a little over 38 per cent of the overall count for the year. Bengaluru retained its position as the top contributor accounting for 14 per cent of overall active jobs. Mumbai and Hyderabad moved to the second and third positions contributing 9 per cent and 8 per cent of the active jobs. Delhi and Chennai emerged fourth with 5 per cent each. Bengaluru's total active white-collar jobs put out for the year sums up to 3.7 lakh.

Among the top five metros, Bengaluru accounted for 37 per cent and at a national level, Bengaluru's contribution stands at 15 per cent for the year. Hyderabad and Mumbai contributed 7 per cent each of the national total, and Delhi and Mumbai stand third with 5 per cent contribution each.