White collar hiring in March dips marginally by 1.4%: Report

MUMBAI: Hiring trends in India's white-collar job market dipped marginally by 1.4 per cent in March compared to the same month last year, driven by a decline in recruitment in the retail, oil & gas, and education sectors, a report said on Wednesday. The Indian white-collar job market remained almost stable in March 2025 compared to the same period last year, despite two extended holiday weekends due to Holi and Eid, according to a Naukri.com report based on JobSpeak Index data.

The report said recruitments in a few sectors ended up in the red as compared to March 2024, including retail (13 per cent), oil & gas (10 per cent) and education (14 per cent).

The IT sector witnessed a 3 per cent decline, marking an improvement from the 16 per cent contraction in March 2024.

Interestingly, the emerging tech sub-sector under IT that comprises companies working in technologies like crypto and blockchain witnessed a growth of 36 per cent.

Additionally, IT startups also witnessed a growth of 11 per cent growth in March 2025, it added.

The Naukri JobSpeak is a monthly Index representing the Indian job market and hiring activity based on new job listings and job-related searches by recruiters on the resume database of Naukri.com.

Meanwhile, the report revealed that Chennai emerged as the unicorn hiring powerhouse in March, delivering a 29 per cent growth in unicorn recruitment.

Delhi NCR followed closely with a 23 per cent growth and Hyderabad with a 17 per cent increase.

Banking and Financial Services unicorns were particularly aggressive, demonstrating a robust 36 per cent growth in hiring, effectively challenging the broader market's cautious sentiment.

"We were expecting some transient dips owing to the extended holiday weekends in March, and the JobSpeak index is playing back the same, especially in a few sectors. However, the overall Index and most major sectors staying stable v/s last year is a promising takeaway for us. Robust growth in pockets like AI-ML, emerging technologies and senior professionals' cohort added a silver lining to the March trends," Naukri Chief Business Officer Pawan Goyal added.