Hiring during April dips by 62% due to lockdown to curb coronavirus pandemic: Report

Mumbai: The nationwide lockdown due to the spread of COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in 62 percent decline in hiring activities in April compared to the same month last year, according to a report. Hiring activities dropped to 951 last month from 2,477 in April 2019, according to the Naukri JobSpeak Index. The April 2020 decline in hiring is led by sectors like hotel/restaurant/travel/airlines (-91 percent), auto/ancillary (-82 percent), retail (-77 percent) and accounting/finance (-70 percent). [caption id=“attachment_4856401” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. Thinkstock.[/caption] The Naukri JobSpeak is a monthly Index which calculates and records hiring activity based on job listings on the Naukri.com website. New jobs for professionals in the ticketing/travel/airlines, hotel/restaurants and HR/administration sectors witnessed a dip of 95 percent, 89 percent and 78 percent, respectively. Functional roles in purchase/supply chain (-70 percent), marketing/advertising (-69 percent), sales/business development (-69 percent) and accounts/finance (-68 percent) also witnessed a steep decline. However, new jobs for professionals in the IT-software (-51 percent), BPO/ITES/KPO (-54 percent) pharma/biotech/healthcare (-57 percent) and teaching/education (-56 percent) sectors were less impacted as compared to other sectors in April 2020. The job market across cities registered a double-digit dip in hiring mainly led by metros where Delhi dipped by 70 percent followed by Chennai (-62 percent), Kolkata (-60 percent) and Mumbai (-60 percent). There was an across the board decline in hiring at varied experience levels with the entry-level experience bands (0 to 3 years) witnessing the sharpest decline of 67 percent. “The disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact the hiring activities leading to a 62 percent decline in April’ 2020. While hotel, restaurant, travel, airlines have been significantly impacted, industries like IT-software/software services, pharma/biotech/clinical research and insurance have been less impacted,” Naukri.com Chief Business Officer Pawan Goyal added.