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50% Jobseekers Focus On Self-Development In A Tough Job Market: Survey

Naukri.com rolled out the survey to 50,000 active jobseekers to gauge their sentiment around the jobs market, career progression and increment expectations.

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The sixty-four days of the lockdown may have paved way for uncertainties in the job market but only 10% active jobseekers confirmed that they have been laid-off, revealed a survey by India’s No. 1 job site, Naukri.com. The unwelcomed pause in the hiring activity has opened new avenues for jobseekers to up-skill themselves and enhance their domain expertise. Close to 50% jobseekers confirmed that they are utilizing this time to focus on self-development. The survey also revealed that the job seekers from the IT, Pharma, Medical/Healthcare, and BFSI industries were less impacted by layoffs and salary cuts as compared to their counterparts from other industries.

Further to this, the survey revealed that fear of laying off or salary cuts are not the key driver for a job change. Interestingly, it’s better career opportunities. 70% of job seekers are scouting new jobs for better career opportunities followed by 16% due to salary cuts by their organization and 14% due to the fear of being laid off by their company.

Out of the 10% of job seekers who have already been laid off, 15% were from the Airlines and E-commerce industry each and around 14% were from the Hospitality industry. Around 13% of the laid-off employees were senior professionals with 11+ years of work experience and were working in either Sales (12%), HR & Admin (12%), Marketing (11%) or Operations/Supply Chain (11%) roles.

Referring to the survey findings, Pawan Goyal, Chief Business Officer, Naukri.com said, “The survey gives a broad direction of maintaining caution towards the future outlook of the job market. While only 10% jobseekers confirmed that they have been laid-off as per the survey, almost 34% fear that a layoff is imminent. The Step-Up’ initiative by Naukri.com aims to facilitate the hiring of the laid-off segment by improving their discovery by the recruiters & expense less access to their CV’s. On the positive side, it is heartening to see that more than 50% of jobseekers are focusing on upskilling for better career opportunities and that is a sure-shot way of long term career growth.”

The majority of job seekers are utilizing the time at hand due to the lockdown for self-development and career advancement. Either the job seekers have enrolled in for an upskilling course or are seeking professional help for building their resumes and brushing their domain knowledge. Data Science & Analytics courses (22%), followed by Digital Marketing (20%), and Finance and Risk Management (16%) were amongst the top courses being picked up by jobseekers to up-skill themselves.

There is a mixed feeling around layoffs and salary cuts amongst job seekers. 41% of the jobseekers were positive that layoffs are not likely to happen in their organization. These job seekers were mostly from the BFSI, IT, and Pharma industries suggesting a relatively higher job security sentiment in these industries. On the other hand, 59% of the jobseekers, mostly from the Airlines, Hospitality, E-commerce, and BPO/ITES industries, confirmed that the layoffs are either already announced or most likely to happen in the coming days.

On the salary cut front – one-third job seekers indicated that salary cuts have not yet been announced but are most likely in the near future. In the most impacted sectors such as Airlines, Hospitality, and E-commerce almost half of the job seekers indicated that salary cuts have been announced in their companies.

Comparing the results of a similar survey carried out pre-COVID 19 on Feb 20 revealed that the jobseeker outlook on salary increments has changed drastically. Just 18% of the jobseeker pre-COVID 19 were expecting a modest hike of 0 to 5% but this number has now swelled to 63% given the conservative outlook of their companies. Similarly, 77% jobseeker was expecting an increment between 6-20% pre-COVID 19 and this now has drastically reduced to just 34%.



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