Re-Imagine the Re-Emerging Sectors Post Covid

After the pandemic-induced wretched employment scenario resulting from mass employee layoffs and economic uncertainty last year, things are finally beginning to look up this year as far as India Inc’s intent to hire across industries and skill sets is concerned. Aided by the government’s much-improved vaccination policy over the last couple of months and it’s balancing act between ensuring strict adherence to Covid protocols and allowing periodic relaxations from stringent restrictions at the same time, the Indian economy is much better prepared on its road to recovery than it was last year. Favorable growth forecasts ranging from 11.5% by the IMF to 12.8% by OECD and FITCH have only bolstered business sentiments and hiring intent in India for the next few months.

A look at the current trends and sentiments across some of the emerging sectors, rather re-emerging sectors post Covid second wave, like – Agriculture & Agrochemicals (increasing demand for agricultural inputs and allied services along with initiation of PMKSY), Construction & Real Estate (government focus on ensuring affordable housing and demand for commercial office spaces steadily growing again), Automobile & Auto Ancillary (growing awareness about social distancing resulting in increased demand for private vehicles in order to avoid public transport and the booming Logistics & E-commerce sectors leading to increased demand for commercial vehicles) as well as Energy & Infrastructure (Energy heavyweights like Adani, ReNew Power and Shapoorji Pallonji investing huge in India’s renewable energy space and government’s increased focus on highways and road projects, metro rail projects and dedicated freight corridors) indicates that there is a definite need to hire increased manpower in these sectors over the next 6 months or so to address the demand-supply gap resulting from an increased government spending along with a business and consumption friendly budget announced earlier this year.

The steady revival in commercial activities in these sectors is likely to sustain the growing demand for entry and junior level jobs which will see the biggest share of hiring across the hierarchy in these re-emerging sectors. With improved Covid vaccine and testing facilities becoming accessible to more and more people and acting as a consumer confidence booster, the Indian workforce is readying itself to return to the workplace and TeamLease on its part is ready as ever with its rich and immensely effective manpower database to help Corporate India not only achieve but beat pre-Pandemic growth levels.

Now the big question is how equipped, rather, how digitally equipped, is India Inc. to be able to benefit from the vast resource pool available at its disposal? There is no debating the fact that digitisation of HR processes (none more important than attracting & retaining top talent) is the need of the hour if an organisation wants to overcome the challenges posed by the Covid crisis and stay ahead of its competitors with an eye on healthy financials. As per Jobs and Salaries Primer Report 2021, with states recognising agricultural activity as essential and allowing it during lockdowns, the sector is accelerating its way back to pre-Covid levels. Whereas, the prevailing uncertainty ensures that the Automobile and Allied Industries slowly inch back on their path to post-Covid recovery. The second wave has spelt mixed fortunes for the Construction and Real Estate sector as some states have halted activity even while some others have not. The sector does better than the slump of the previous year, though.

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