Leading job portals namely Naukri, Scikey and Personnel Search Services, that are reporting high demand of jobs from professionals during the pandemic, are launching measures that will ensure priority to laid-off workers.
Sectors such as healthcare, pharmaceutical & life-sciences, ecommerce, logistics, online groceries, agri-tech, other digital sectors and gig workers that are significantly active during the outbreak are getting frequent job offers. However, customer service, marketing and sales are some of the sectors that are badly impacted by the job cuts so far, reveal HR experts.
Meanwhile, deamnd of work-from-home (WFH) jobs that pay around Rs 5 lakh annually have doubled as compared with February, said Naukri.
Naukri’s Step-Up initiative, launched around two weeks ago, keep a track of companies and industries that are currently recruiting along with active jobs to apply for, in addition to launching personalised hiring drives. The portal also plans to add new insights into hiring trend sand webinars with experts in the coming days.
“Close to 5,500 unique companies have posted jobs on the platform to hire relevant candidates,” said Pawan Goyal, the chief business officer at Naukri. Some of these companies are IBM, Accenture, HDFC Bank, HCL Technologies and Oracle.
“We have also curated some useful content around WFH productivity, job search, upskilling courses, etc., to help jobseekers navigate these times. Also, there is a section on hiring insights that includes trending keywords from recruiters and insights,” he added.
Scikey has started a ‘Jobseeker-to-Jobsecure’ initiative that plans to connect job seekers with employers in the next 100 days via its artificial intelligence-based Talent Commerce Platform.
There is a section on the platform that allows employers who have laid off employees to list the details of the staff impacted so that the portal can help them match and connect with other employers who are hiring, cofounder Karunjit Kumar Dhir said.
“The platform is industry-agnostic to maximise the ability to match people with similar technical skills as well as softer human skills in one industry into other industries where new jobs are being created,” Dhir added.
Several listings on the portals clearly mirror the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the job market.
According to Naurkri, the monthly jobseeker applications have inflated to 31 percent and 38 percent in February and March, respectively, compared with January, as per Scikey. On the other hand, hiring activity tumbled 62 percent year-on-year in April.
“Most of these layoffs over the last two months have happened in startups which were overstaffed. But, we are discussing this with the clientele as there is ample availability of good talent in the market,” said Erica Lobo, the executive director of personnel search services at Ray & Berndtson. “Even if a company does not hire right away, just having conversations with these candidates to see which roles can they fit in will be a big win,” Lobo said.
