Hiring slump leads tech jobs fall to one-year low

A demand slump in hiring among India’s seven largest information technology (IT) firms, which typically lead the availability of tech jobs in the country, has seen the latter fall to a three-year low. According to hiring firm Xpheno, while India had over 2.73 lakh tech jobs in January last year, the same fell by 59% YoY to 1.12 lakh, last month. Factors linked to the drop in tech jobs include seasonal IT hiring slowdowns, as well as soft market demand due to inflationary headwinds.

The tech sector’s contribution to overall active jobs hit a record low of 40% of all active job openings from the highs of 84% a year ago, the firm’s Active Jobs Outlook Report for January 2023, said.

To be sure, the sector has registered a steady drop over the past year. The Xpheno data showed that in May 2022, tech jobs accounted for as low as 69% of the total number of active job openings in India, which dipped to 58% in September.

After the record low figures of 106,000 IT job openings in October 2022 (total job opening was 225,000 for that month) the sector had shown signs of recovery with improving numbers in November and December. The last three months of the year from October-December saw a decline of 47%, 48% and 46% respectively. However the curve has dipped again in January with the sector putting out 112,000 active jobs, as compared to 124,000 in December 2022.

“The local hiring patterns of the IT sector have also been sensitive to the layoff trends over the last quarter. The gradual drop in hiring demand in the Indian Tech Sector has been largely correctional, but currently entering a phase of negative impact if further sustained,” said Anil Ethanur, Co-founder, Xpheno.

Xpheno isn’t the only firm that’s noted such a trend. Staffing firm Naukri.com, in a February 2, 2023 report, noted a 25% decline in IT sector hiring in January 2023. The recruiter’s monthly Index, called JobSpeak, showed a 2% growth in overall hiring activities in Jan 2023 compared to the same time last year. 

This comes at a time when Big Tech firms have laid off staff globally, along with startups. Bloomberg reported today that PC giant Dell will be laying off 6000 employees globally, while firms like Meta, Google, Amazon and Microsoft have all laid off thousands of employees too.

That said Pawan Goyal, chief business officer of Naukri.com, noted that the dip in the IT sector’s hiring has been complemented by a hiring spree in the non-IT sectors, such as BFSI, oil, healthcare, hospitality, real estate and auto sectors.