New Delhi, Aug 4 (IANS): The advent of Covid-19 pandemic and the more recent monkeypox has come as a boon for job seekers in the insurance sector.

With the rise in demand for health insurance products, the sector registered more than 21 per cent growth in hiring activity in July 2022 compared to last year, a report showed on Thursday.

Hiring activity growth was also seen in sectors such as oil and gas/power (18 per cent), and IT-software (16 per cent) in July 2022, according to data from Naukri JobSpeak Index for July.

The data showed that the job market in India continues with its upward trajectory.

Other sectors that continued to show an upward trend over July last year, include travel and hospitality (68 per cent), banking (59 per cent), retail (37 per cent), BPO (35 per cent), auto (34 per cent), education (32 per cent), telecom (32 per cent), and IT-Software (7 per cent).

The report "validates that the employment market is on a steady course without any significant hotspots," said Pawan Goyal, Chief Business Officer, Naukri.com, in a statement.

"The trend in growth is seen across most industries, cities and experience bands which is great news for the job seekers," he added.

Since the beginning of 2022, most key centres have been exhibiting positive hiring sentiment by registering an upward trend and marking double-digit growth.

Among metros, Kolkata led the charts with 42 per cent year-on-year growth in July'22. Other metros such as Mumbai (36 per cent), Delhi/NCR (25 per cent), Chennai (25 per cent), Pune (24 per cent), Hyderabad (12 per cent), and Bengaluru (10 per cent) too, continue to show positive growth in June'22 vs last year.

Further, the demand for top management (more than 16 years) and professionals with 13-16 years' experience saw the steepest uptick of 32 per cent and 31 per cent, respectively in July'22 vs July'21.

In addition, a positive hiring sentiment was also observed for other experience brackets such as 0-3 years (20 per cent), 4-7 years (18 per cent), and 8-12 years (24 per cent) when compared with July'21.