New Delhi: It continues to rain jobs in India. But, wait a bit. Retail trade is not where the employers are going bullish as they gear up to join the retail bandwagon.
It's the mining and construction sectors, which are going to witness maximum hiring activities in the New Year. Also, away from the traditional high job growth areas in North and South, West India is where the employers are showing the strongest hiring expectations.
The New Year is, however, going to witness a slight slowdown in the finance and insurance sectors.
These are the findings of the Manpower Employment Outlook Survey for the first quarter of 2007.
The survey says India will continue to witness bullish hiring activity in the New Year and the job market is likely to remain extremely vibrant. It said the hiring intentions continue to be strong around the country with an overall net employment outlook (NEO) of +39 per cent. While this may mark a slight decrease over the last quarter by 3 per cent points, the year-over-year average is going to register a considerable increase of 12 per cent points, the survey said.
While employers in all four regions in India anticipate varied hiring intentions across industry sectors, employer hiring expectations are strongest in West India (+43 per cent), where the Outlook has improved 25 per cent points over the previous year but weakened by 6 per cent points compared to the fourth quarter of 2006.
North India is also anticipating vigorous hiring activity in the first quarter of 2007 with a NEO rating of +40 per cent. This is relatively stable in comparison to last quarter (1 percentage point increase), but is an increase of 8 percentage points year-over-year. Employment prospects are weakest in the East, where the Outlook is +28 per cent, a considerable decrease by 9 percentage points as compared to Q4 of 2006.
Employers in the South are also expecting dynamic hiring activity in the first quarter of 2007 with a slight decrease by 1 percentage point over the previous quarter. Overall, of the 4,742 employers surveyed, 41 per cent expect an increase in hiring activity in the first quarter of 2007, 2 per cent anticipate a decrease and 50 per cent are expecting no change.
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Mining and construction sector employers indicate maximum hiring intent over the next quarter (+44 per cent) where the Outlook has improved 5 percentage points from Q4 2006 and 23 percentage points from Q1 2006. The services sector employers have also reported a bullish Outlook at +43 per cent, a slight decrease over the previous quarter by 2 percentage points, but a 13 percentage points increase on the year-on-year basis. The finance and insurance sectors have shown a fall in employer hiring intentions by 11 percentage points over the previous quarter, with a reported Outlook of +39 per cent.
Quarter-on-quarter figures of the survey shows while positive hiring intentions have been reported by employers in India overall, employers in a few industry sectors have reported a quarter-over-quarter decline in the Net Employment Outlook. The most significant decrease was in the Finance/Insurance/Real Estate sector with a 11 percentage point quarter-over-quarter decrease while in mining and construction, employers have reported a quarter-over-quarter Outlook increase of 5 percentage points.
Employers in the services sector reported marginally weaker hiring expectations, from +45 per cent in the previous quarter to +43 per cent. Public administration and education sector employers report a reduced Employment Outlook by 9 percentage points. In the manufacturing sector, the employers forecast a slight dip of 3 percentage points in the Net Employment Outlook. Employers in the wholesale and retail trade sector too expect a moderately slower hiring pace with a decline of 8 percentage points in Net Employment Outlook quarter-over-quarter to +33 per cent.
Year-over-year, there have been some significant changes in the hiring intentions among employers in India as compared to the same period in 2006. Year-over-year comparisons reveal increases in Outlooks by employers in almost all industry sectors, with the largest increase (23 per cent points) in the mining and construction sector. The manufacturing and services sectors have also shown an increase of 13 per cent points as compared to last year.
The survey covered 27 countries and territories globally for the quarter. "The hiring intentions are slightly more cautious in comparison to the previous quarter, but remain strong. Although the survey shows significant hiring activity across all industry sectors, the mining and construction sector employers report the strongest hiring intentions, thus emphasising the importance of skilled labour in this domain,” Soumen Basu, Executive Chairman, Manpower India, said about the Indian scenario.
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