India Inc hiring sentiment improved for Q3, FY'12: Survey

Indian employers are more upbeat about hiring during the October-December quarter of FY2012 than they were in the third quarter a year ago, says a survey by MyHiringClub.com.

The country's net employment outlook - an indicator of recruitment intentions - stood at 27 per cent for the third quarter of FY'12.

On a quarter-on-quarter basis, the outlook has improved by a moderate 9 percentage points, although it was better by a considerable 12 percentage points year-on-year.

The survey, which was conducted among nearly 2,600 employers, said that all nine sectors and all four regions of the country had positive hiring plans for the third quarter of FY'12, though the employment outlook for some sectors has declined vis-a-vis the year-ago period.

"Overall hiring activity is expected to be good in some industries, the infrastructure sector is doing robust hiring and they have plans for robust hiring activity in Q3, FY'12, also.

"The IT and ITes sectors are still in wait-and-watch mode, because they don't want to incur more expenses in the current global scenario," MyHiringClub.com CEO Rajesh Kumar said.

The report said the infrastructure sector has the most bullish hiring plans, with a net employment outlook of an impressive 21 per cent for the October-December period of 2011.

This is 27 percentage points higher than the sectors' net employment outlook for the third quarter of FY'11. Similarly, in the FMCG sector, the net employment outlook stood at 19 per cent for Q3 of FY'12, 10 percentage points higher in comparison to the year-ago

period.

The FMCG sector was followed by the banking and financial services industry in terms of hiring optimism. Banking and financial services firms had a net employment outlook of 18 per cent for the October-December period of 2011.

The net employment outlook was more conservative in the case of the retail (14 per cent), telecom (14 per cent), automobile and manufacturing (11 per cent) and business services (8 per cent) sectors.

The weakest hiring outlook was seen in the IT and ITes (5 per cent) and real estate sectors (4 per cent), the survey noted.

A region-wise analysis of employers in all four regions predicted a strong labor market in the third quarter of FY'12, with the most optimistic forecast for the South, where the net employment outlook stood at 29 per cent, 17 percentage points higher in comparison to the third quarter of FY'11.

The net employment outlook of the northern, eastern and western regions was also robust, at 26 per cent, 23 per cent and 22 per cent, respectively.