The intent to hire new employees, especially entry and junior levels, in the services and manufacturing sectors is 10 percent higher for the April to June 2023 period compared to the same quarter last year, a new TeamLease Services report suggests. However, the outlook is four percent lower compared to the January to March quarter of FY23.

Nearly 64 percent of employers (compared to 54 percent in Q1, 2022) are keen to increase their resource pool across industries, the staffing firm’s report titled 'Employment Outlook Report' said.

It adds the outlook is strong for entry and junior-level employees, in both service (73 percent and 71 percent, respectively) and manufacturing (49 percent and 55 percent, respectively) sectors. The outlook for mid-level (54 percent) in services and (32 percent) in manufacturing is also balanced.

Kartik Narayan, CEO – Staffing, TeamLease Services, said, “Industries around the world, including those in India, have been severely affected by the current global unrest, which has resulted in large-scale layoffs, a hiring freeze, and an imminent economic downturn. Despite this, hiring prospects in India have continued to improve over the past year."

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He believes the main reason for this is the changing global investment dynamics and the precautionary measures that businesses are taking.

The Teamlease report also claims that from a business size perspective, large-sized organisations in the services (86 percent) and manufacturing (73 percent) sectors have weathered the recession well and have higher levels of hiring intent than in the previous quarter. Across the two quarters and sizes of companies, the services sector has higher levels of hiring intent than the manufacturing sector, it noted.

Job opportunities witnessing a spree in the services sectors include telecommunications, followed by financial services, ecommerce and allied startups, retail and education. Meanwhile, those looking to build a career in the manufacturing space will see higher hiring intent in industries like healthcare and pharmaceuticals, FMCG as well as EV and infrastructure.

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The report adds that the demand for skilled workers has increased to three percent and 2 percent in Q1 Apr-Jun FY 2023-24 for services and manufacturing, respectively. In contrast, in Q1 Apr-Jun FY 2023-24, the intent to hire for blue-collar job roles decreased by six percent for services and eight percent for manufacturing, while the engineering function increased slightly. Companies are also focusing more on digital marketing strategies in order to adapt to changing consumer behaviour.

Mayur Taday, Chief Business Officer, TeamLease Services said, that looking at the current 5G rollout, adoption and increasing number of use cases, the telecommunications sector in India is seeing an increase in infrastructure investment to meet the growing needs of both local and global clients.

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"As a result, telecom companies plan to invest Rs 2,000 crore in the construction of large hyper-scale data centres, resulting in steady growth and job creation for blue-collar, gig, and grey-collar workers. Additionally, the information technology industry is also looking to establish data centres," he said.

Shedding light on at the attrition trend, the report says the services industry is seeing a low talent retention rate, especially in growth businesses (11 percent) and mature businesses (15 percent) whereas the manufacturing industry is observing a positive increment across segments like textile (2.23 percent), power and energy (6.47 percent), and manufacturing, engineering and infrastructure (8.14 percent), the same industries had observed the attrition of 1.22 percent, 5.63 percent, and 7.51 percent respectively in Oct-Dec 2022.