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The Indian job economy is geared up for an uptick in hiring as corporate houses embrace the post pandemic world.

Naukri.com's Hiring Outlook survey suggests that 51% of recruiters indicated both new and replacement hiring in their organisations. The appetite for hiring is up as 32% recruiters confirm that they would be hiring for new jobs.

Interestingly, recruiters indicating that hiring was on hold are just at 5% versus 11% in a similar survey conducted in September 2020.

Many businesses were impacted during the pandemic and as a result, job security was threatened across multiple sectors. However, lay-offs are becoming a thing of the past, with just 1% recruiters indicating lay-offs in their organisation compared to 36% in the earlier survey.

Further, almost 40% of the recruiters expect hiring to go back to pre-pandemic levels in the next three months itself which is in contrast with the sentiments from an earlier survey wherein only 20% recruiters expected hiring to return to normalcy within three months.

Given the boost to digitisation, IT roles remain the most in-demand with 50% of recruiters indicating strong hiring in this segment. Roles in Marketing and Business Development are also gaining traction with almost 38% recruiters expressing intent to hire for these roles. From an experience standpoint, recruiters expect to hire the most in the experience bracket of 3-5 years, according to the survey.

Pawan Goyal, Chief Business Officer, Naukri.com, said "Hiring outlook showcases an upbeat sentiment amongst the recruiters and consultants. In fact, employers are also positive about extending increments to their employees. This is a strong indicator that businesses are moving towards actioning their growth plans and not just survival or business continuity strategies."

Normalcy on the horizon is foreseen as employers have a positive outlook to extend increments to their employees. 27% recruiters plan to rollout increments greater than 15% in their respective organisations while the most opted for increment bracket is 5%-10% as per 35% of the recruiters.

Many jobseekers were unsure of switching during the pandemic but as markets have stabilised, one-third recruiters expect attrition in the range of 10 % - 20%, while another 7% foresee attrition levels greater than 20%. The bulk of this is expected from employees with 1-5 years of experience. Given a surge in demand, IT roles can also witness higher attrition.

With the jobs market back to its hiring ways, recruiters have predicted that retaining & attracting skilled employees will be a challenge in the coming six months. Aligning with that, 45% recruiters are expecting an intense talent crunch and the experience band of 3 - 5 years is expected to be the most impacted.

Campus hiring situation is showing slow, yet steady improvement as one-third recruiters give a green signal to their hiring plans versus a 24% in the Sept'20 survey.

India Inc. is now moving back to office with 43% recruiters confirming the same, a significant improvement as compared to 27% recruiters in the survey done during Sept'20.

Another 29% recruiters said that they would be working from home as most of them agreed that it has been equally or more productive. Rest of the recruiters are looking at a hybrid model in the future.

Naukri Hiring Outlook is a bi-annual survey conducted amongst recruiters and recruitment consultants. The survey covers multiple aspects of job creation trends/forecasts as well as jobseeker behavior covering areas like job opportunities and increments amongst other areas.

1384 recruiters and consultants representing over 10 major sectors participated in this edition of the Hiring Outlook.