With the addition of more number of employees, financial services sector has emerged as the largest job provider in low cost cities, edging out information technology, says a study.
Among 30 lead sectors that provided maximum jobs to young aspirants between Jan-March 2008, financial services outpaced the IT sector in Tier II and Tier III cities, an Assocham study said.
"A change in the job trend has been observed in small cities while traditionally the maximum job openings used to be concentrated in IT sector, but in Tier II and Tier III cities financial services have taken over it," Assocham President Sajjan Jindal said.
For Jan- March quarter, the financial services was the second highest job offering sector, providing maximum employment opportunities of 26.35 per cent during the said period. The study covered 60 cities comprising Tier I, Tier II and Tier III cities.
Further, job creation in the financial services sector was fuelled by the stock market, brokerage houses and mutual funds which accounted for 35.44 per cent of the total jobs created in the sector.
It was followed by the insurance sector that contributed 34.22 per cent in providing job opportunities, followed by the banking sector which garnered 30.34 per cent employment.
Tier II cities, including Pune, Surat and Jaipur, recorded maximum vacancies in insurance companies, banks, mutual funds, and brokerage houses, while the same in tier III cities was witnessed in Mangalore, Pondicherry and Aurangabad.
The second largest share of the vacancies posted in the upcoming cities was for IT sector, which generated an employment of 17 per cent in tier II cities and 17.5 per cent in tier III cities.
However, the IT and ITeS provided maximum job openings in Pune, Surat, Ahmedabad and Nagpur, also Mangalore, Jalandhar and Aurangabad were the most sought after low-cost cities by the IT firms.
Interestingly, in the tier II cities the education sector occupied the third rank offering vacancies of 6.41 per cent, with maximum pie coming from Lucknow, Pune and Jaipur.
Education was followed by consultancy & research sector (4.92 per cent) and management sector (4.70 per cent) at fourth and fifth ranks respectively.