Indian IT, ITes, telcos expected to hire more in April-June

According to staffing firm TeamLease Services, the overall hiring sentiment would be mostly bullish in the 2011 second quarter. "IT, ITes and Telecommunication lift hiring and business sentiments significantly. The hiring sentiment for these three sectors has increased by more than 20 per cent, which is a strong indication of positive business sentiments," the report noted.

TeamLease's employment outlook index -- a snapshot of the hiring scenario in the country -- rose to 74 for the April-June quarter, an increase of five points compared to the previous three months.

"There is an upswing in the hiring sentiment; if we talk in terms of sectors, telecom sector continues to indicate growth in their hiring trends, while the engineering and manufacturing sectors, which have shown relative steadiness in last two quarters, are looking downward," TeamLease Services Vice-President Sangeeta Lala said.

Interestingly, the hiring intent in IT and ITeS was the highest in cities like New Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Pune. The survey, which covered top executives at around 640 companies across the country, focuses on employment growth potential, the business outlook and hiring forecasts with relation to the location and the company profile.

The companies' outlook for their business in the review period has also risen by three percentage points to 76 index points. Besides, hiring plans have also picked up across entry, middle and senior levels.

"The growth in intent to hire entry and middle-level profiles is appreciable and constitute close to 50 per cent of all those intending to hire. While hiring intent decrements slightly for junior level profiles, the magnitude of hiring intent is seen to be well over 60 per cent, with much of this intent being contributed by small sized (up to 500 employees) businesses," Lala said.

Among job profiles, sales, marketing and customer service retained leadership over all other functional areas with a close to 80 per cent hiring intent. The report also noted an increase in the intent to hire the 'blue collar' workforce this quarter.

"Going forward, SMEs are looking to hire in junior and mid levels, effectively more expansion across locations while large companies are intending to hire at senior levels. In the past year, the employment outlook index beats its own pace of growth vis-a-vis the business outlook index," said Lala.