- By quade
- 13 October 2023
Indian BPO and IT Sector Badly Affected By Hiring Slowdown
Employment opportunities in many of India’s white-collar sectors have reported a serious decline. Information technology (IT) and business process outsourcing (BPO) were the most badly damaged.
This report came from the Naukri JobSpeak Index and shows that in September alone, the hiring rate across all white-collar jobs declined by 8.6% compared to its numbers last year. In September 2022, there were 3,103 job offerings, but this year only recorded 2,835 jobs.
Causes of the BPO and IT Job Reduction
The cause of this decline has been attributed to the slowing global activity that led companies to slow down or halt recruiting activities over the last few months. With foreign companies slowing down their production, there has been less need for BPO and IT jobs, making it difficult for Indian companies to enlarge their workforce.
Among the sectors, BPO/IT-enabled services (ITES) have been among the hardest-hit businesses. This industry saw hiring drop 25% year-on-year. Other industries that were badly affected were fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), which fell 23% while major IT hubs like Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, and Pune reduced hiring by 18–32% at the same time.
This isn’t anything new, as the IT and BPO industries have already been struggling for the last few months with slowing global activity. IT hiring was said to be down 46% in July compared to last year, while BPOs were down 21% around the same time.
Some entrepreneurs had something to say about this.
“While the IT sector continues to stay impacted, robust growth in the banking sector is a bright spot.”
-Pawan Goyal, Chief Business Officer of Naukri.com
Trouble Across the Economy?
Unfortunately for India, the hiring struggle is not limited to the BPO or IT sectors. A report by the Foundit Insights Tracker service shows that India’s online recruitment services have declined by 8%. The survey shows that India’s hiring index dropped from 277 last year to 255 this year.
One reason for this decline has been attributed to companies focusing on upskilling and improving the quality of their existing workforce instead of expanding and hiring new talent.
However, not all sectors have seen a decline. Some have even experienced some growth during the year. In particular, the hospitality and travel industries grew by 22%. This surge was attributed to travel picking up as a result of the monsoon season in the country.
Meanwhile, the financial services and insurance (BFSI) and healthcare sectors also saw some success. Both of these industries grew 7%. This was due to the need for bank managers and financial experts to act as consultants. Lastly, industries like oil, gas, and auto manufacturing saw growth of around 6%.
Pawan saw this as good news and remarked on it during his interview.
“Coupled with the fact that the overall index sequentially grew 6%, this underscores the resilience of the Indian job market, anchored in sectoral diversity,”
-Pawan Goyal, Chief Business Officer of Naukri.com
