India ranks sixth globally for its employment outlook during the July to September quarter of 2024 with a Net Employment Outlook (NEO) of 30 per cent points, 8 points above the global average, a recent survey by ManpowerGroup observed.

India stood ahead of China with a 30 per cent point in Net Employment Outlook (NEO). China is left behind India by 2 per cent points in NEO. The most cautious Outlooks were reported by employers in Hong Kong (8 per cent) and Japan (12 per cent).

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Region-wise, a strong hiring intent was observed among the employers.

The survey observed a strong hiring intent in north India, followed by western and Southern regions. However, the East regions of the country reported the least optimistic outlooks.

Among the Industry size, large organizations with employees capacity of 1000 to 4999 indicated the strongest optimism in hiring, followed by small (50 – 249) and medium (250-999) organizations and large enterprises.

The ManpowerGroup Employment Outlook Survey in its India edition observed that the financial sector, the real estate sector and healthcare and life sciences continue to dominate the market with the strongest hiring intentions. However, the report noted that the outlook was weak in communication services, transportation and logistics and automotive sectors.

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Interestingly, contrary to common belief, almost 68 per cent of employers plan to increase headcount due to the adoption of AI and Machine Learning over the next 2 years.

“The global slowdown has been impacting the IT sector in India for quite a while. Added to the circumstances, is the political uncertainty looming over the country due to general elections during data collection of this survey. Clearly, employers are being cautious in their short-term resource planning,” said ManpowerGroup’s India and Middle East Managing Director Sandeep Gulati.

“Real Estate sector, however, has seen an increased investor interest with a capital inflow to the tune of 1.1 billion USD led by the residential sector. We hope the gap between the demand of specific skills and supply is bridged with strategic long term talent planning in corporates in India. Hire, train and deploy is a strategy that can make a difference to mitigate this problem,” he added.

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