The Business Bytes
TBB BUREAU
BENGALURU, APRIL 26, 2022
After two years of the pandemic, the last quarter (Q4FY22) proved to be exciting for job seekers as the markets finally opened up. As Indians gave more than 3 crore interviews in the last three months, a 13.71 percent jump in comparison to the previous quarter (October-December 21), apna.co, India’s largest jobs and professional networking platform witnessed promising trends in the Indian job market post-pandemic.
The country has noted a sudden boom of jobs in the last quarter, apna.co has recorded a 42 percent QoQ (quarter-on-quarter) growth in its employer base. Due to the second wave of covid last year, sectors such as healthcare, delivery, e-commerce were booming while other sectors had a fairly low employment rate. Fast forward to Q1 of 2022, sectors like hospitality, beauty and wellness, manufacturing, real estate, and aviation logistics are back in action and have seen a gradual increase in job openings as the markets have started recovering. Infact, apna.co recorded an 80 and 30 percent increase in job openings in beauty & wellness and hospitality sectors respectively.
According to apna.co’s analysis, IT and Logistic sectors witnessed the highest hiring momentum for the rising workforce. Real estate, Hospitality, Beauty and Wellness industries witnessed a sharp recovery this year in comparison to the same time last year.
In the last three months, with a massive 141 percent growth in new users, apna.co registered 48 lakh new professionals on its platform who have been interviewing for various roles across industries. 46 percent of these new users preferred the vernacular interface over English to find job opportunities and build their professional networks. In fact, according to the data shared by apna.co 45 percent of its user base was seen interacting in communities and building their network.
March logged in the maximum activity from both employers and professionals in the quarter gone by.
Northern India had an inclination towards telecallers,computer operators, and security guard roles, however people in the southern parts of the country preferred jobs roles like business development and logistics. Eastern India users applied for delivery and sales, while professionals from the west were on a lookout for opportunities in back office, finance, driver and retail.
Telecaller, operator and back office have consistently been our top categories in all regions.
apna.co’s report also records the changing user interest in jobs across categories. For example, user interest increased by 44 percent for business development, 39 percent for sales/field work, 22 percent for delivery persons, 19 percent for back office roles, 16 percent for computer operators, 14 percent for engineering (across functions) while 11 percent increase for human resources and cooks/chefs and bakers.
Roles such as ward helpers (60 percent), refrigerator technicians (57 percent), chemical engineers (35 percent), welders (32 percent), turner fitter (19.96), draftsmen (14 percent) etc witnessed an increase in applications in comparison to last quarter.
Even though 50 percent of the interviews took place in the top metros including Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Kolkata, Interviews in tier II cities have increased by 30% from the last quarter.
‘Job Chahiye’ was the most common sentence used across apna communities in the last three months.
apna.co’s quarter report notes that graduates followed by users with educational qualification under 12th and 10th gave maximum interviews in the last quarter. Apna app has continued providing easy access to users, in terms of comprehension, connectivity and convenience offering services in Hindi and English.
While India has started moving out for work, the trend for WFH jobs remains significant. In the last quarter apna.co noted a 2 percent increase in people applying for remote jobs.
In another motivating update, with a plethora of job opportunities this year, the demand for freshers also increased this year in comparison to the same time last year.
apna.co’s analysis also highlights an increased participation by women in the workforce this quarter as they applied for a variety of roles and gave more than 1 crore interviews, a 20 percent increase in comparison to last quarter. Apart from the traditional roles, women also applied for roles such as delivery person, security guards, drivers, chefs/bakers, IT support, civil engineers, fitness instructors etc.
Commenting on the growth,Manas Singh, Chief Business Officer,apna.co, said, ‘The Indian economy is on an optimistic growth trajectory this last quarter and we are certain that this year, India will finally bounce back completely from the impact of the pandemic. apna will continue being the supporting partner in getting India back to Work this year as well.”
apna.co also noted a 96 percent increase in app installs in comparison to the same time last year.
Recently apna.co also partnered with Vi, with the aim of targeting the youth of Bharat to help them provide the right job, providing users on Vi with priority access to India’s largest job listing. This initiative will increase the chance of interview opportunities, at no cost.
apna.co is scaling at a rapid pace and has further expanded to 26 cities in the last three months alone. The platform is now present in 70+ cities, with more than 22 million users and 200,000+ employer partners.
