Are we looking at a booming job sector? Here’s a little reality check!

At a time when PM Modi is trying to revive the economy and woo investors back to the country, a slow growth in jobs isn’t exactly good news. While, everyone has been talking about creating job opportunities in this country, here’s a reality check!

According to Naukri.com’s monthly job reports, there has been a rise in job opportunities year on year (YoY) but this growth in the overall job sector can be attributed to only a handful of sectors.

If we take a closer look at the situation, the sectors that have been registering higher recruitment activity, have largely remained constant. These sectors include BPO, IT and ITes, banking and financial services sector, telecom and media and entertainment among others.

“Post an impressive 13% growth last month, the job market continues to sustain the momentum gained and is moving further north with an 18% YoY growth in September. This growth is primarily driven by sectors like Telecom, Banking & Software Services,” said V Suresh, chief sales officer at Naukri.com.

As per the Naukri.com’s JobsSpeak report for September 2015, telecom recorded a 30% increase in its recruitment activity—the highest among all the sectors. This was followed by media and entertainment with 28% increase. Pharmaceutical industry recorded a meager 6% rise in the hiring activity.

While, most of these industries belong to the services sector, it is still a matter of concern that core sectors such as manufacturing, construction and engineering, infrastructure and energy among others haven’t been too keen on hiring.

The Oil and Gas industry, which had been recording a YoY growth of 5% in recruitment, posted a sharp decline of 18% in September 2015 over the corresponding period in 2014. Similarly, infrastructure too has registered a further decline in its hiring activing over last year.

“These sectors haven’t been doing well for the past few years. They have been going through a bad phase with no new investments or very negligible investments,” said V Suresh.

He added, “There are speculations that the existing projects are taking off but unless that doesn’t happen, we do not expect these sectors to record any substantial growth in job opportunities.”

Well, while the situation does look grim at the moment, here’s hoping that PM Modi’s initiatives such as Make in India and Smart Cities will help boost up investments, thus create employment opportunities in these sectors. Unless, that doesn’t happen, we cannot truly have a sustainable economic model and it isn’t good news at all!