Revealed! The top JOBS of 2020

Leading career site Naukri.com recently analysed the white-collar jobs data on its platform to understand industry-wise hiring trends of 2020.

According to Naukri's Hiring Outlook Survey, taken by 1,327 recruiters and consultants across the country, industries like medical/healthcare, IT, BPO/ITeS were less impacted but sectors such as retail, hospitality and travel were affected.

It further pointed that job-seekers should remain optimistic for the coming year as 26% recruiters foresee hiring bouncing back to pre-COVID levels within the next 3-6 months.

As many as 34% consultants said that it would take their organisations 6 months to 1 year to resume hiring.

Here are the sector-wise trends:

The top jobs and sectors of 2020

Medical/healthcare

As a sector that was at the forefront of fighting the pandemic, medical and healthcare saw an immediate sequential recovery of 90% in hiring in May 2020.

The demand for medical roles has increased with more requirement of professionals including ENT specialists, microbiologists, staff nurses and medical superintendents/directors up by 48% 41%, 30%, and 18% respectively.

Medical/healthcare companies in search of healthcare professionals are Fortis, Apollo Hospitals, Religare, Bayer Group, Mankind Pharma and Wockhardt Hospitals, among others.

BPO/ITeS

While Y-O-Y growth in hiring was positive at the start of the year, the decline of the BPO/ITES sector was in line with the pandemic.

Even though hiring in the sector went down by 19%, once lockdown restrictions were lifted, things began to look up.

With more WFH support for employees, the sector has adapted and hiring for roles such as telecalling/telemarketing executives with skills such as voice process, lead gen and sales has increased by 21% as compared to 2019.

IT 

The IT sector has been among the least impacted sectors when it comes to hiring in 2020.

As digitisation across companies became the need of the hour with businesses being forced to go virtual, the sector saw quick recovery in sequential hiring starting June after a decline in April and May.

Compared to pre-COVID levels, hiring in IT is down by 23% in the post-COVID period; but the sector shows promise as 76% recruiters surveyed said they won’t action salary cuts.

Key roles that are in demand in the sector include tech support engineers, database architects/designers, ERP consultants, and software developers.

The demand for these roles for the current year are up by 98%, 34%, 20%, and 6% respectively as compared to 2019.

Apart from marquee companies that hire in the sector, start-ups such as Cars24, Lenskart, Dunzo, Razorpay, Delhivery and Pine Labs are actively hiring on Naukri.

Education/Teaching

The pandemic pushed the education sector to adopt a digital module of teaching, helping in its sequential recovery of 71% in June’20.

Although it is 36% down in the post- COVID period compared to pre-COVID levels, skills such as content writing (+20%) and instructional design (+112%) are in demand in the sector by recruiters.

EdTech platforms like BYJUs, Toppr and Simplilearn are offering roles on Naukri.

The Podar Education Network, the Rustomjee Kerawala Foundation, Amity University and coaching centres like FIITJEE are actively hiring.

'Job economy is directly proportional to the growth of various industries and the impact was clearly visible, ' says Pawan Goyal, Naukri's chief business officer. 'Factors including an overhaul of the work culture, dependence on digitisation as well as pandemic-led precautions and restrictions contributed to the uptick and downtick in hiring among key sectors.'

'Since this year was more about transitions and navigations,' Goyal adds, 'we are looking forward to 2021 for sustainable growth in the job market.'

Sectors that are on the path to recovery

Hospitality and Travel

Recruitment in the hospitality and travel sectors had declined in 2019, but became steeper in April 2020 when lockdown measures were imposed and movement was restricted.

Hiring declined by 91% in April 2020, but recovered sequentially around August this year with unlocking across the nation.

To restart growth, businesses adapted -- many online food delivery services started, hotels offered long stay options with added safety measures.

In response to that, the demand for professionals in roles like facility managers, housekeeping and electrical maintenance went up by 400%, 279% and 21% respectively in 2020 as compared to 2019.

In addition, with a lot of pent-up demand and news of the vaccine just around the corner, this sector can certainly become the sunshine sector in 2021.

Retail 

The offline retail sector experienced a decline in hiring from January 2020 onward that peaked further in May.

However, the sector started seeing slow sequential recovery from June and improved further during the festive season in October.

As lockdown restrictions were slowly lifted in phases, many offline outlets re-opened, and companies ramped up their online presence to allow customers more touchpoints to purchase products.

Due to this, hiring in the sector recovered in November.

Companies like Marks and Spencers, Future Retail, Puma, Shoppers Stop, Lifestyle, Vijay Sales and others continue to hire professionals on the job site.

Auto/Auto Ancillary 

The auto sector saw a decline in growth and hiring since February this year, and the trend peaked in April.

Interestingly, the sector has been seeing encouraging month on month recovery from May 2020.

This could be attributed to the purchase of both new and second-hand cars that has gone up in the past few months with more people trying to practice social distancing norms by using their personal vehicles to travel.

The sales have reflected in recovery in hiring.

Furthermore, recruiters in the sector are hiring for operations and supply chain roles.

Some firms hiring in this domain include Royal Enfield, Cars24, Tata Motors, TVS, Piaggio, Suzuki, Hero Cycles and Goodyear.