Latest hiring trends

After the massive disruption due to the pandemic, hiring across sectors like ecommerce, retail and automobile are witnessing a spurt, especially for blue-collar jobs.

E-commerce sector

The pandemic has fueled a change in consumer behaviour. There is an increasing acceptance and higher penetration of e-commerce shopping across metro cities, tier-II cities and towns that is facilitating direct employment and indirect employment across kirana stores and seller partner locations.

Additional hiring will also continue across ancillary sectors like warehousing, logistics, support services and technology, as businesses optimise and supply chains expand.

Recruiters believe that ecommerce will create 3,00,000 to 5,00,000 seasonal jobs as there has been a 35% surge in demand for temporary staff compared to the previous year. While there will be a demand for positions at the junior level such as delivery personnel, packers, pickers and sorters, vacancies are also expected to show up in mid-management levels in operations, finance and digital marketing.

Retail

A survey by Manpower Group has revealed that among 3,000 employers, nearly 64 per cent would be eyeing to expand their recruitment during the last two quarters of this year.

When the festive season approaches, retail companies usually require more workers on board to meet the rising consumer demands. As a result, there is more focus on hiring gig workers during this period. While the hiring rate in the retail sector during 2020 was only 20 per cent that of 2019, this year it is expected to be around 40 per cent.

The beginning of the holiday season is forcing retail companies to up their game when it comes to hiring new talents. From using AI-based HRMS tools for efficient hiring to increasing hourly wages to sign-in bonuses, retail companies are leaving no stones unturned to attract the right talent.

Automobile

India has the fourth largest automobile sector in the world and 65 million jobs are expected to be created by 2026.

By the end of 2020, the Indian automobile industry was showing good signs of recovery and both two-wheelers and passenger vehicles showed a recovery in month-over-month sales. A leading job portal site shows that hiring in the sector has continued to improve with 29% sequential growth in September 2021.

As new trends like connected cars, autonomous driving, shared mobility and electrified vehicles offer an ideal opportunity for automobile manufacturers to drive disruptive changes across segments, it is also expected to create new job opportunities in the sector.

The top roles that automobile companies would be focusing on include industrial engineer, production manager, service maintenance engineer, sales/business development manager, accountant and design engineer.

(The author is the founder of a HR software solutions company)