Hiring activity in the country touched an all-time high in July, witnessing an 11 per cent sequential increase, indicating a strong revival of economic growth and a recovery of business from the impact of Covid-19, a report by Naukri JobSpeak said on Friday.

Naukri JobSpeak is a monthly index that calculates and records hiring activity based on job listings on the Naukri.com website month-on-month.

With 2,625 job postings, hiring trends grew 11 per cent in July compared with 2,359 postings in June, the highest it has ever been, including the pre-Covid-19 timeline, according to the report.

The Indian job market has witnessed sequential growth for the second month in a row, with a 15 per cent rise in June, after the pandemic-linked decline in April and May, it stated.

According to the report, as businesses continued to ride the wave of digitisation, the IT-software and ITES sectors maintained its growth momentum with an 18 per cent increase in July compared to June.

Almost all sectors registered positive growth in July contributing to the 11 per cent growth in hiring activity, bringing cheer to job seekers, said the report.

Sectors that were severely hit by movement restrictions during the pandemic, continued to show growth in hiring for the second month in a row, including hotels, restaurants, airlines and travel (36 per cent) as well as retail (17 per cent).

Accounting and taxation with 27 per cent, FMCG (17 per cent), banking and financial services (13 per cent) and education and teaching (8 per cent) also saw positive sequential upswing in hiring activity during the same period.

The pharma, biotech and clinical research sector saw a marginal drop of five per cent in jobs, while the media, dotcom and entertainment sector dropped 15 per cent in July.

Naukri.com Chief Business Officer Pawan Goyal said, “July has provided conclusive proof of the revival of hiring activity in the country, after a setback in April and May. Not only has it increased by 11 per cent in July, but the Naukri JobSpeak Index has reached an all-time high this month, even surpassing pre-Covid-19 levels.”

He added that the most noteworthy and consistent growth over the past few months belongs to the information technology (IT) and IT-enabled sectors and the tech functional area, which has stayed relatively insular to the effects of the pandemic. This demonstrates that digital transformation of Indian businesses is well underway and central to recovery efforts after the pandemic, he said.

The report further showed that as there was a growing importance of digital transformation of businesses, it resulted in double-digit growth in hiring during July compared with June in prominent IT hubs like Bengaluru (17 per cent), Hyderabad (16 per cent) and Pune (13 per cent).

India’s megacities, Delhi/NCR (13 per cent) and Mumbai (10 per cent), also kept up with similar growth, while hiring in Chennai and Kolkata grew 10 per cent and 4 per cent, respectively.

Among smaller cities, Coimbatore with 24 per cent and Jaipur with 11 per cent clocked positive growth, while Ahmedabad was the only city to record negative numbers of 3 per cent in July.

The report found that while IT-software roles enjoyed high demand and grew 16 per cent in July compared to the previous month, most functional areas continued to recover and build on the positive growth in June.

Sectors like hospitality with 44 per cent and travel with 42 per cent growth bounced back in July. Sales/business development (15 per cent), HR/administration (11 per cent) and accounts/finance (10 per cent) also saw a sequential rise in hiring activity in the last one month.

The Naukri JobSpeak index for July reported 9 per cent and 4 per cent growth in banking and insurance as well as teaching and education roles, respectively.

Hiring in marketing, advertising, MR and PR (4 per cent) domain also increased, while pharma and biotech roles showed a marginal 3 per cent degrowth in July compared to June, it added.