Most recruiters expect hiring to return to pre-covid levels in 3-6 months

BENGALURU: Most recruiters feel it will take three-six months for hiring to return to pre-covid levels, while 15% expect it to take more than a year, said a survey conducted by job portal Naukri.com.

The survey, covering over 1,600 responses from human resources and recruitment heads, found that only 15% of the recruiters and HR heads confirmed layoffs are being announced whereas one-third assured there will be no layoffs. This contrasts with a separate job-seeker sentiment analysis taken by over 50,000 job seekers wherein almost 21% confirmed layoffs.

This comes when various organisations especially startups have laid-off thousands of people in the last two months or so as they are unable to sustain the losses due to the impact the covid-19-induced lockdown.

According to the Naukri.com survey, only one in every five HR heads confirmed salary cuts. “This clearly indicates the need for transparent and frequent conversation between the employer and employees. Another good news for jobseekers was around job-offers,” the report stated.

42% HR heads and recruiters confirmed that job offers made prior to the lockdown will be honoured while only 6% indicated that they will be withdrawn and the balance indicated the offers being valid with deferred joining dates.

On the hiring front, as companies are striving to manage their current workforce, hiring has been frozen in most organisations. Overall, one-third HR heads and recruiters confirmed that they have completely paused the hiring while only 10% revealed that hiring is continuing as usual. “The most impacted sectors from a hiring standpoint have been Hospitality, Aviation, BFSI, Construction, and Staffing. However, Pharmaceuticals and Healthcare industries are the least impacted.”

Large businesses, with over 1,000 employees, are the least affected in terms of hiring while organisations with less than 50 employees are worst affected. In large businesses, 62% of the recruiters confirmed that they are still hiring while 63% of the recruiters from small sized companies with less than 50 employees confirmed hiring being completely paused for the time being, Naukri.com said.

About 38% of the companies surveyed indicated only critical hiring is taking place in their organisation. “Within that, the 2-5 year followed by 6-10 year experience band will see maximum hiring. As the organisation continues to ramp up their exposure to digital channels, application development followed by IT support & maintenance are the key domains where critical hiring is taking place even amidst this crisis,” Naukri.com said.

At the same time, the recruiters confirmed that the 2-5 year experience band is most affected by layoffs whereas sales/marketing, HR/admin and operations are the most affected functional domains. “Freshers and employees from the data sciences/analytics domain are least affected.”

The report stated that 58% of HR heads and recruiters whose companies are in the process of laying off or will lay-off employees in the near future are interested in outplacement services.