White-Collar Hiring Jumps 12% in July 2024: Report

White-collar hiring activity grew by 12% in July compared to the same month last year as most sectors reported healthy double-digit growths, a report said on Friday.

India's white-collar hiring activity grew to 2,877 job postings in July 2024, registering a 12% year-on-year increase compared to 2,573 during the corresponding month last year, according to the Naukri JobSpeak Index.

The Naukri JobSpeak is a monthly index representing India's job market and hiring activity based on new job listings and job-related searches by recruiters on the resume database of Naukri.com.

Most sectors reported healthy double-digit growths, with pharma/biotech (26%), FMCG (26%), real estate (23%), and AI-ML (47%) leading the way, said the report.

However, the report said, it could be due to an impacted base of July 2023, when there was an atypical dip in hiring activity on account of IT sector's woes.

The IT sector experienced a healthy 17% growth in July, compared to the year-ago period, while the artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI-ML) sector continued its robust performance with a remarkable 47% year-on-year increase, it added.

Further, Gujarat continued to lead the pack with Rajkot, Jamnagar and Baroda recording 39%, 38% and 25% growth, respectively.

Hyderabad emerged as a key hub for job creation across multiple key industries, including hospitality (76%), insurance (71%), BPO (52%) and oil and gas (44%).

Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam have reported a healthy sequential growth of 13% and 14%, respectively, said the report.

"The robust 12% growth in hiring activity is a much-awaited, encouraging sign for this financial year. This is the first month this year that we have seen positive growth, and the fact that it is secular, cutting across sectors and geographies, makes it truly promising. This broad-based, positive shift could potentially be the onset of an upcycle in the Indian white-collar job market," Naukri Chief Business Officer Pawan Goyal added.