New Delhi, Feb 11  With India getting back to work, the hiring activity saw sequential growth in certain sectors including education, real estate and banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) in January, said a new report from job portal Naukri.com on Thursday.

The education/teaching domain sector saw an over 11 per cent increase in hiring in January 2021 vs December 2020 as colleges and schools are set to re-open in the post-Covid era. 

The insurance sector registered 8 per cent growth in sequential hiring as the demand for health insurance has gone up. 

Other key sectors such as real estate (+13 per cent), retail (+7 per cent), BFSI (+5 per cent) and BPO/ITES (+3 per cent) too have shown growth in month-over-month hiring in January 2021, said the Naukri JobSpeak report.

However, sectors such as auto/ancillary and telecom are still experiencing a slowdown in sequential growth as the country gradually returns to normalcy. 

The research showed that key tier-2 cities saw an uptick in recruitment activity in January 2021 as hiring in Vadodara, Chandigarh, and Jaipur grew sequentially. 

However, all metro cities namely Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai and Delhi saw a marginal drop in hiring at a month-over-month level.

Job roles in sales/business development and banking/insurance domains also saw an increase in hiring sequentially. 

"While overall hiring is down by 19% at a Y-O-Y level in Jan'21, it is interesting to see sectors like education, BFSI and real estate show growth in hiring sequentially," Pawan Goyal, Chief Business Officer, Naukri.com, said in a statement.

"Emerging cities led by Vadodara and Chandigarh are driving hiring and have outperformed metros as they record a better recovery at a M-O-M level." 

Overall, hiring activity in the month of January declined by 19 per cent vs last year, said the report.