Hiring in the IT sector dropped by 21% in December 2023; AI job offers increase

Amid a cautious job market in the IT industry, roles such as full stack data scientist, IT infrastructure engineer, and automation engineer showed a positive trend.

Further, there was a noteworthy 5% increase in new job offers for AI compared to the same month in 2022.

Hiring in the IT sector displayed similar trends as seen in the most of second half of 2023.

Full Stack Data Scientist, IT Infrastructure Engineer, and Automation Engineer were some of the job roles that saw decent hiring despite a cautious job market for the IT industry.

On the other hand, sectors like BPO, education, retail, and healthcare showed a decline in hiring sentiment, with decreases of 17%, 11%, 11%, and 10%, respectively, in job offers in December compared to the same month in 2022.

In December, the hospitality and pharmaceutical sectors stood out as the primary areas experiencing job growth.

The hospitality sector continued its growth momentum in new job offers with a 4% increase in hiring as compared to December 2022.

The job growth for this sector is highest in the cities of Mumbai and Delhi NCR. Senior professionals with over 16 years of experience emerged as the most sought-after candidates for hiring in the sector.

The pharma sector saw an increase in hiring of 2% in December 2023 as compared to the corresponding month of 2022.

There has been a renewed focus on R&D in the Pharma sector which has led to its growth and jump in placements.

The sector experienced maximum growth in new job offers in the cities of Ahmedabad, Vadodara, and Mumbai.

Professionals with 16 years of experience or more saw highest demand from the industry in the sector.

Senior Marketing Managers and Store Manager job roles witnessed decent hiring in December 2023.

Although the new job offers in the oil and gas sector were not spectacular in December 2023, they stayed at the same level as witnessed in December 2022.

In the cities of Ahmadabad and Delhi NCR however, there was a spurt in hiring in the sector.

Industrial Relations, Maintenance Engineer, Maintenance Head, and Operations Manager were the job roles that were in demand in the sector in December 2023.

The non-metros outshined the metros in terms of hiring in December 2023.

Vadodara registered a growth of 3% in new job offers in the latest month as against the same month of 2022.

This growth is noticeably better than the metros where Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune and Kolkata registered declines of 24%, 23%, 23%, 17% and 16%, respectively, in new job offers.