IT sector to boost hiring in 2014

Recruitment activity in India is poised to improve this year, driven by sectors such as IT and ITeS, after hiring remaining largely unchanged in December from a month earlier.

"The hiring landscape, which is currently holding steady with a slightly positive bias in India, is set to improve since bellwether sectors like IT and ITeS have shown signs of growth, with the Naukri Job Speak Index for IT growing at an average of 5 per cent in the past three months," Info Edge (India) Group President Finance Ambarish Raghuvanshi said.

Info Edge (India) owns job portal naukri.com. Since 2014 is an election year, naukri.com expects companies to go into expansion mode, either ahead of the results or after the polls and concomitantly there will be an uptick in hiring activities of companies here, he added.

The Naukri Job Speak Index, which tracks monthly hiring activities online, stood at 1,296 in December, a 13 per cent increase over the year-ago period. However, it was unchanged from the level in November 2013.

BPO hiring grew 33 per cent year-on-year. Other top-performing sectors include pharma and telecom, with the index moving up 16 per cent and 7 per cent, respectively.

There was increased demand for professionals in the IT and BPO sectors and in finance, while there was a dip for employees in banking, insurance and supply chain management.

Among the metros, Delhi and Hyderabad witnessed the maximum improvement in hiring trends in December from a year earlier.

Chennai was the only city among the metros that saw the job index decline last month, registering a 4 per cent drop.