Businesses’ intent to hire is only three percent higher in the fourth quarter of the fiscal year compared to the previous quarter ended December 2022, so, overall hiring will remain slow even for entry-level jobs, staffing firm TeamLease Services said on Monday.

“Historically, Q3 is a very strong quarter for entry-level jobs, especially in sales, marketing, and for delivery boys. This time, despite the festive season in Q3, we haven't seen many hirings happening. Also, if I look at the Q4 trend on a quarter-on-quarter basis, it used to be about 5-6 percent growth between Q3 and Q4, but this time our outlook is the intent to hire is only 3 percent quarter on quarter,” Ramani Dathi, Chief Financial Officer, TeamLease Services, told CNBC-TV18.

Dathi of TeamLease, which mostly deals with entry- and mid-level jobs, explained that the October to December quarter is typically a weaker one because of furloughs and the holiday season. However, even going by the past trends, there is weaker hiring within IT, and early trends for Q4 are also very weak. “So, we believe the next two quarters as well in IT may continue to remain a little slow on overall hiring,” she said.

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Meanwhile, Pawan Goyal, Chief Business Officer of Naukri.com, believes that non-IT sectors continue to see robust momentum. Reflecting on his outlook for the current quarter, he said, historically, when things slow down in the US, with some lag, IT usually picks up in India.

Goyal also said the white-collar job market is robust in non-metro cities, especially in the segment of eight years plus experience.

On the other hand, TeamLease’s Dathi said, “The good sign is that all the three IT companies have reported gaining new mandates and orders. And also, for the last two quarters, they haven't done any substantial hiring, so we believe that there will be some pickup and some momentum in the hiring starting this quarter but having said that it is not going to be very strong.”

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