Online hiring activity picks up 5 percent in September 2016

Online hiring grew at a clip of 5per cent in September, mainly driven by sectors like IT/ITeSand banking, and the outlook appears bullish with the festiveseason round the corner, says a report.

The Naukri Job Speak Index for September stood at 1,888,a gain of 5 per cent in hiring activity over the same periodlast year.

"After an impressive 22 per cent and 10 per cent year-on-year growth in July and August, respectively, the Septemberindex seems to have slowed a bit, but the good news is thesustained positive momentum in key sectors like IT/ITeSand banking," Naukri.com Chief Sales Officer V Suresh said.

Suresh noted that "with the festive season round the corner, we can expect the index to move further north in thenext few quarters. Good times ahead for jobseekers acrosssectors".     Industry-wise, while IT openings - software/software services - grew at a moderate 6 per cent, it was animpressive 20 per cent for ITeS/BPO industry in September.

In contrast, IT hardware saw jobs declining 20 per centin September this year compared with a year earlier.  Banking/financial services jobs rose 25 per cent whileinsurance clocked an even more impressive 43 per cent yearlygrowth in September.

In terms of profession, IT-software expanded at 6 percent, but IT hardware jobs fell 5 per cent. Pharma/biotech wasin a better shape, clocking 12 per cent growth.

Traditional functional areas like sales and marketing andadvertising continued to show stable growth. The report further noted that among metro cities, allexcept Delhi saw either a flat growth or a dip when it came tojobs expansion.

Delhi NCR recorded a 10 per cent annual increase in jobs.Bangalore jobs were flat at 2 per cent while Hyderabad, Puneand Kolkata saw a modest yearly gain of 5 per cent.     Mumbai and Chennai jobs actually went down compared withthe previous year by 2 per cent and 3 per cent, respectively,the report added.