Hiring demand has increased 1 percent sequentially in September, led by printing and packaging on account of rising online sales, followed by BPO and ITeS, as well as import and export, according to a report.

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Compared with August, September saw a stable monthly growth of 1 percent in job posting activity this year, according to the Monster Employment Index by Monster.com, a Quess company.

In September 2021, hiring demand for printing and packaging grew 11 per cent sequentially due to rising online sales, followed by an uptick in industries such as BPO/ITeS (5 percent), import/export (4 percent), retail (2 percent) and travel and tourism (2 percent), it added.

Meanwhile, job postings improved by 9 percent year-on-year in September compared to the same month in 2020, indicating an optimistic outlook for the rest of the year, the report noted.

Data from the index also indicated that hiring demand has increased by 8 percent in the past six months, even with the impact of the second wave of the pandemic, it added. The Monster Employment Index is a broad and comprehensive analysis of monthly online job posting activity conducted by Monster India.

In September 2021, location-wise data indicated that cities of Baroda (3 percent), Ahmedabad (1 percent), and Delhi-NCR (1 percent) witnessed a positive uptick in job posting activity compared to the previous month. However, there was a monthly decline in hiring in most metro cities, including Kolkata (-4 percent), Chennai (-4 percent), Bengaluru (-3 percent), Pune (-2 percent), Hyderabad (-2 percent) and Mumbai (-1 percent), in contrast to their performance over the past few months, the report said.

This trend could be on the rationale of back-to-office trends and remote working preferences of the workforce, it said. Nevertheless, metro cities continue to lead with significant hiring activity year-on-year (September 2021 vs September 2020) with Bengaluru (38 percent), Pune (22 percent), Hyderabad (20 percent), Chennai (18 percent), Delhi (6 percent) and Mumbai (4 percent) showing a promising uptick, the report stated.

Online demand for professionals in purchase/logistics/supply chain (7 percent) led, with the highest monthly growth, given the persistent rise of e-commerce in India. Roles in arts/creative (6 percent), senior management (5 percent), HR and admin (4 percent) and finance and accounts (1 percent) also witnessed an uptick in job postings month-on-month, the report said.

However, occupations such as legal (-4 percent), sales and business development (-4 percent), software, hardware, telecom (-3 percent), hospitality and travel (-2 percent) and health care (-1 percent) saw a fall in job posting activities in September 2021, it stated.

Monster.com CEO Sekhar Garisa said, "As we approach the end of the quarter, it is promising to see that we have witnessed 6 percent growth in hiring activity over the last three months. With imminent festive sales and significant increase in e-commerce activities, it is notable that job roles for logistics and supply chain are well in demand." Garisa added. With emerging back-to-office trends and increased vaccination efforts, "we are bound to see a change in the Indian recruitment space for the better,” he said.

(Edited by : Shoma Bhattacharjee)