New Delhi: India Inc’s hiring activity picked up 4.1% in September with IT, BPO and real estate sectors turning bullish after a long time, a report by job portal naurkri.com has said.

The naukri.com’s monthly ‘JobSpeak index’ increased to 729 in September from 701 in August this year.

“The secular trend is positive across sectors. Had it not been for an early festival season we may have seen further improvement in the index.

“The good news is that the IT and BPO sectors which are big employers especially at entry and junior levels seem to be in positive territory after a long time,” Info Edge (owner of naukri.com) COO and director Hitesh Oberoi said.

Moreover, on the three-month moving average, the index inched up to 719 in September from 715 in August.

Last month, companies’ hiring activity saw a positive trend with 14 out of 41 sectors covered showing a double digit rise in hiring activities.

The IT-enabled services (ITES) and BPO, real estate and retail sectors saw a significant push in September as compared to August, the report stated.

The ITES/BPO sector, saw an increase of 18.3% in hiring activity in September, while real estate and retail saw a rise of 36.8% and 12.2%, respectively.

A single digit increase was reflected in 13 sectors, while 11 functional areas reflected a dip.

Sectors like construction and engineering, insurance and IT Software rose by 6%, 4.5% and 2.1% in September compared to August, the naukri.com report stated.

However, Banking & Finance and Oil & Gas saw a drop in hiring activity by 6.5% and 4.6%, respectively in September as compared to August.

Out of the top 13 cities covered in the Naukri.com survey, Mumbai, Chennai and Delhi/NCR saw an upward trend in hiring at 9%, 8.4% and 3.5%, respectively.

Smaller cities like Ahmedabad and Vadodara saw double digit growth at 11.8% and 12.5%, respectively.

Meanwhile, hiring activity declined by 5.4%, 3.4% and 2.4% in Hyderabad, Bangalore and Pune, respectively in September as compared to August.

The job index has been calculated on the basis of job listings added to the website month on month with July 2008 been taken as the base month with a score of 1,000 and the subsequent monthly index is compared with data for July 2008.

The data has been sourced from Naukri.com and it reflects job listings and therefore hiring trends on the site.