Hiring activity sees modest decrease of 2 per cent in Jan: Naukri.com

New Delhi: Overall hiring activity reported a modest decline of 2 per cent in January as certain key sectors like banking, financial services showed negative growth amid uncertainty across the board and the trend is likely to continue for next few months, says a report.

The Naukri.com's Jobspeak Index stood at 1,707 in January this year, down 2 per cent over January 2016, when it stood at 1,748. However, on a month-on-month basis, the index recorded a an increase of 3 per cent from 1,659 in December 2016 to 1,707 in January 2017.

"The Jobspeak Index has shown a small annual decrease of 2 per cent in January 2017. Due to uncertainty across the board, some of the key sectors have shown negative growth and while there are a few positive signals, this trend may continue for a few more months," Naukri.com Chief Sales Officer V Suresh said.

Sectorwise, Telecom/ISP industry saw a 23 per cent slump in January this year over the year-ago period, while jobs in the oil & gas and power, infrastructure industry saw a 28 per cent fall.

Construction and Engineering jobs decreased by 10 per cent in January 2017 when compared to year-ago period whereas banking and financial services jobs saw 1 per cent fall. The maximum number of new jobs continued to be in the 0-3 years category. Senior Management hiring fell, with jobs for 13-16 years of experience witnessing a decrease of 3 per cent when compared with December 2016.

Within the top metros, Delhi/NCR, Mumbai and Bengaluru witnessed a decline in hiring activity of 11 per cent, 8 per cent and 6 per cent, respectively. Among other metros, the jobs index recorded a growth of 3 per cent in Hyderabad and Chennai, 15 per cent in Pune and 24 per cent in Ahmedabad.

The index has been calculated based on job listings added to the site month on month. July 2008 has been taken as the base month with a score of 1,000 and the subsequent monthly index is compared with data for July.