Recruitment sector plods through a gloomy quarter

Hiring activity cooled in tech and retail sectors in the December quarter as companies cut hiring mandates and reduced sub-contracting costs, while banking recruitment stayed flat and manufacturing saw a minor uptick.

- Devina Sengupta

While hiring in the IT and startup sector is down to the levels of June quarter of 2020 when a strict lockdown was in force, retail and packaged consumer goods mandates are almost 20% lower from a year ago, recruiters said. However, manufacturing and automobile industries have shown some growth in hiring.

"Hiring in IT companies and startups has fallen by 40% when compared to the October-December period of last year. In fact, in IT, recruitment numbers are now similar to April-June 2020 when a lockdown was on," said Kamal Karanth, co-founder of Xpheno, a tech recruitment firm.