The hiring trends are absolutely specific to the industry domain and its growth. There is room for measured optimism in the data, but supporting workers will require collaboration at an unprecedented scale and speed.

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There is a pressing need for organisations to reimagine and redefine their talent landscape, especially their talent acquisition strategy to tide over the immediate crisis along with keeping a foresight on the future. HR Leaders are tirelessly looking for effective solutions catering to the paradigm shift that has led to the new ways of working, changing job roles, and a turbulent recruitment ground across the industries.

Despite the recent festive season and the irreversible impact of the coronavirus pandemic; there have been signs of recovery in the hiring activities in metro cities of India. According to a recent study; there has been a surge in hiring in the number of job postings in October by 5.55 percent compared to September 2020.

Transformation In Indian Hiring Scenario

The future of work has already arrived for a large majority of the white-collar workforce. According to the latest data from ‘World Economic Forum’ which reveals 84 percent of employers are set to rapidly digitalize working processes, including a significant expansion of remote work—with the potential to move 44 percent of their workforce to operate remotely.

With radical shifts in business operating principles, the approach of work, the economic crisis the roles critical to business success will change. Hiring strategies would need to align with this change and prioritize and support with targeted process interventions in place.

Post-Pandemic- Is This Right Time To Hire?

The sectors like IT, Pharma, Insurance are booming but on the other hand industries like hospitality, travel, tourism, and real estate have witnessed the worst dip in history. The IT sector shows an increase in Contractual jobs. Whereas the work from home model has led to an increase in the hiring activities for the sectors like Telecom and e-commerce. Here are some major and visible reasons listed below;

- The hiring trends are absolutely specific to the industry domain and its growth. There is room for measured optimism in the data, but supporting workers will require global, regional, and national public-private collaboration at an unprecedented scale and speed.

-Employees have witnessed massive layoffs and job losses across the world in different domains. Keep the ‘uncertainty in the center employable’ people are looking up for suitable vacancies even with comparatively compromised salaries.

-As experts have mentioned pandemic is the ‘good time to hire’ as the availability of talent pool will be high and also companies can get the employees on board sooner.

Experts’ Viewpoint

Hiring is sharply up, both in established companies and startups. Companies like Capegemini, Tata Steel, Philips, Deloitte, PepsiCo, BigLeap Technologies have recently hired or set to hire so, the hiring level is close to touching the pre-covid hiring numbers. To understand the new norms of hiring and the job market; BW People reached out to HR Leaders to get their viewpoints. Let’s see what experts have to say:

Chandan Chattaraj, President HR (India & Global), UFLEX Group

One of the crucial factors to revive the economy globally is to generate more job opportunities. As the front runner of a core industry ’Packaging’ that made sure that the supply chain of essential items was not impacted during the lockdown crisis, UFlex has not let the unforeseen situation of pandemic derail its plans. We have already recruited over 120 new team members in this fiscal, which is an addition of 2% to the existing Indian workforce. The epidemic could not shake us to alter our plans and we will be hiring 400+ employees with a mix of local and expatriates across various facilities worldwide.

Vibhash Naik, Head - HR, L&D and Admin, HDFC Life

When we were initially hit by the pandemic, during March and April, one did not know what to expect with the lockdown. Now, with the number of cases going down, the lockdown getting eased, and having adjusted to the new normal, organisations have started to lift the hiring-freeze and invest in hiring talent. Again, this may vary from industry to industry. Depending on the business outlook that each one has, some are being conservative while some are back to the usual hiring pace. At HDFC Life, we lifted our hiring freeze in August 2020 and our hiring is back to the normal levels. Having said this, we are very cautious about hiring and allow the addition of headcount based on business criticality.

SV Nathan, Chief Talent Officer, Deloitte India

After the uncertainties of the initial few months, businesses are being cautiously optimistic, and recovery is picking up. Consequently, hiring is picking up too. It is the right time because the demand for the post-pandemic world we see is different. There is a shift from hiring for new skills over legacy skills. The order board is very fluid as we have seen a gradual increase in it as we go past the second quarter. Given the nature of our business, hiring is based on the visibility and availability of projects. We are also looking at opportunities in investing in the gig economy from a talent resource standpoint. That said, we will always focus on getting in top-notch professionals as that is the backbone of our business- talented people.

Vinay Kotra, Co-Founder and Director, BigLeap Technologies

Hiring trends are very specific to industry domains. If we keenly observe not all domains are hiring aggressively. Pandemic is certainly a good time to hire as the availability of talent pool will be high and will get resources on board sooner. Since there was uncertainty around the lockdown and resumption of normalcy. We are looking at doubling up our present workforce (outsourced) of 4000 to 8000 people in the next 6-12 months and we are on track towards our goal. So as a staffing company we are pretty optimistic at this point.