job: Blue collar job openings rise the most in 18 months

India’s blue and grey-collar job markets recorded the highest demand for manpower in one-and-a-half years last month amid opening up of services activity, pickup in consumption, rising attrition, and an overall positive business sentiment even as many companies closely watch rising inflation and lingering geopolitical turmoil and its impact on the economy.

More than 1.26 million new jobs or fresh vacancies for blue and grey collar manpower were posted across industry sectors in May – double the number of jobs recorded in April, according to data from QJobs, an online employment platform that is a part of staffing services company

, shared exclusively with ET. This is an all-time high number of jobs on the platform since its start in November 2020, and the number of jobs has been rising month on month.

Grey collar refers to workers not classified as white or blue collar and have specialised technical skills.

“We are seeing an unprecedented increase in fresh job vacancies in blue and grey collar segment in the current quarter,” said Ajay Singh, senior vice-president at Quess Corp. “This signifies the improved confidence among companies in business expansion, leading to an increase in hiring across the job categories. Companies are transitioning to work from office and are quite optimistic about the business outlook.” The number of vacancies in May last year was about 105,000 amid a raging second wave of Covid-19.

Economists and job market experts are of the view that the recent rise in the number of Covid-19 infections in the country and fears of a possible fourth wave is not likely to deter companies strengthening their teams in the near-term amid pickup in business activity, rise in consumption, and reopening of offices, educational institutions and business establishments.

“Even though macro indicators such as rising interest rates, runaway inflation, supply chain issues and the war in Ukraine are flashing red and companies are keeping a close watch on them, when we look at micro dynamics every sector has to deal with sudden fluctuations in demand, rising attrition and potential opportunity cost of lost business,” said Sachchidanand Shukla, chief economist at Mahindra Group.

“Moreover, consumption spikes have been seen across segments due to revenge consumption or FOMO (fear of missing out) – especially at the higher segment in categories ranging from white goods, automobiles, and housing, etc,” he added. Apart from that, positive near-term indicators such as increased mobility, relatively strong corporate balance sheets and higher medium-term growth trajectory are forcing companies to have adequate manpower despite the sword of the fourth wave hanging.