Online hiring activity grew 6% in January, says Monster.com

New Delhi: Indian job market started the year 2015 on a positive note as online hiring activity registered 6 percent year-on-year growth led by production and manufacturing sector, says a report. [caption id=“attachment_1331743” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Monster.com website. Getty Images[/caption] The outlook for this year looks bullish too, the report by job portal Monster.com said. Monster.com’s employment index, a monthly gauge of the country’s online job demand, stood at 151 during January, registering 6 percent growth over January 2014 when it stood at 142. “The Monster Employment Index continues to show a positive growth momentum with a six per cent growth in January 2015. The production and manufacturing sector grew by 38 percent YoY followed by travel and tourism and IT sector,” Monster.com (India/Middle-East/South East Asia/Hong Kong) Managing Director Sanjay Modi said. “The indicators suggest that we are moving in the right direction in strengthening our ‘Make in India’ initiative,” he said. Even as the index witnessed a decline of over 5 percent to 151 in January, from 160 in December, 2014, the outlook looks bullish. “With the Budget 2015 round the corner, we expect some robust steps from the government that would boost the employment scenario in the country,” Modi added. Industry-wise, 12 of the 27 sectors monitored by the index expanded during January. Production and manufacturing led all industry sectors charting the steepest annual growth, while year-on-year online recruitment activity dropped the most in office equipment and automation sector. Among occupation groups eight of the 13 monitored segments registered an improvement, led by arts/creative professionals saw the most notable growth in demand from the year-ago; up by 42 percent. It is notable that the group experienced significant contraction in demand between May 2013 and April 2014. City-wise, online opportunities exceeded the year-ago level in nine of the 13 cities monitored by the Index. Baroda (up 29 percent) led all monitored cities by the way of long-term gain for the second month in a row. Among metro markets, Delhi-NCR (up 12 percent) exhibited the highest growth, the report added. PTI