White-Collar Job: India’s white-collar job openings at 30-month high in May

India’s white-collar employment market recorded 330,000 active job openings in May, the highest count in the last 30 months, according to data collated from LinkedIn and top company job boards.

The number of vacancies accepting applications in May was 61% higher from a year earlier and 8% more than last month’s 305,000, showed the data put together by specialist staffing firm Xpheno. Pre-Covid, the monthly average number of vacancies was around 230,000.

This rise in employment opportunities was driven by opening up of sectors such as hospitality & tourism, manufacturing, healthcare, automotive, oil & energy, media & advertising and telecom, which collectively put out double the number of openings compared with April. Other sectors like education, pharma, logistics & supply chain are also adding more openings.

The growth in employment opportunities in May comes despite an 11% drop in contribution from the tech sector – comprising IT services, products and Internet-enabled sectors – that usually drives the white-collar market. However, despite the drop in volume, the IT services sector recorded 64% growth over the same period last year while the tech sector as a whole contributed 70% to the overall jobs count.

“This is one of the healthiest mixes of job openings in the last 30 months as the contribution of tech jobs has dropped and some of the sectors like aviation, hospitality and travel, which had a tepid outlook for the longest time, have seen a sharp rebound,” said Kamal Karanth, cofounder, Xpheno.

Top employers in sectors other than IT that made up for the reduction in tech openings included Taj Group, Renaissance Hotels, RitzCarlton, Marriott, AirBnb, Cleartrip, Volvo, Mahindra, Ford, Nissan, Shell, ExxonMobil, GE Healthcare, Baxter, Bayer, Nokia and AT&T, according to Xpheno data. Top recruiters in the IT sector included Amazon, Accenture, Dell and HP.

The growth in the number of jobs is an indication that high inflation and the impact of the Ukraine-Russia war on rising input cost have not deterred companies from preparing for future growth as the economy comes out of the pandemic-related business restrictions, said economists and job market experts.

Madan Sabnavis, chief economist at

, said the white-collar hiring market would remain buoyant and inflation would not be a deterrent. “On the whole, I expect 4-5% headcount growth in the corporate sector,” he said.

“Top sectors will be financial services, IT, cement and metals which will continue to see high demand led by private sector investment and government incentives,” said Sabnavis. Rising prices may, however, have an impact on consumer sector hiring – including durables and fast-moving consumer goods – as companies may not be in a place to increase product prices for the second year and as a result will go slow on increasing manpower.

The top five metros – Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi and Kolkata – put out more than 190,000 active openings and registered growth of 103% over the same period last year. With more organisations reopening offices, hiring action has also been returning to the metros over the last six months.

However, flexible formats of engagement remained popular as both remote and hybrid openings registered their highest counts over a two-year period with a contribution of 16% to overall opportunities. Full-time remote and hybrid jobs ended at a high of 53,000 in May compared with 47,000 a month ago.