New Delhi, Jan 9 (IANS): Hiring in the Indian IT sector declined 21 per cent in December 2023 as against the same month in 2022, displaying similar trends as seen in most of the second half of last year, a report said on Tuesday.

Full stack data scientist, IT infrastructure engineer and automation engineer were some of the job roles that saw decent hiring despite a cautious job market for the IT industry, according to Naukri JobSpeak Index.

Sectors like BPO, education, retail and healthcare were some of the major sectors that displayed cautious hiring sentiments, declining by 17 per cent, 11 per cent, 11 per cent and 10 per cent, respectively, in job offers in December as against the corresponding month of 2022.

The major sectors that witnessed job growth in December were hospitality and pharma.

New job offers for AI stood out with 5 per cent growth in the latest month as against the corresponding month of 2022.

"We observe marginal sequential growth of 2 per cent in December hiring activity compared to November, driven by non-IT sectors,” said Dr. Pawan Goyal, Chief Business Officer of Naukri.com.

However, the IT sector continued to be significantly impacted pulling the overall index down in comparison to last year, signalling a longer wait for a complete recovery in IT hiring,” he added.

The hospitality sector continued its growth momentum in new job offers with a 4 per cent increase in hiring as compared to December 2022.

The job growth for this sector is the highest in the cities of Mumbai and Delhi-NCR. Senior professionals with over 16 years of experience emerged as the most sought-after candidates for hiring in the sector.

The Pharma sector saw an increase in hiring of 2 per cent. There has been a renewed focus on R&D in the Pharma sector which has led to its growth and jump in placements, said the report.

The non-metros outshined the metros. Vadodara registered a growth of 3 per cent in new job offers in the latest month as against the same month of 2022, the report added.