BFSI, FMCG, tech sectors remain resilient to layoffs: Experts

Even as there are reports of companies laying off and putting a halt to new hiring, some sectors remain resilient during this difficult times, including banking and financial services, FMCG, food and technology, according to industry experts.

Despite the economic downturn, the BFSI sector has shown a positive outlook in terms of hiring, TeamLease Service vice president Ajay Shah told PTI here.

Banks' penetration into rural markets will result in a surge of job opportunities in tier II-III cities, he said.

Top banks like HDFC Bank and Axis Bank are slated to add around 10,000 jobs in the next 9 to 12 months, he added.

Similarly, retail and online business have shown demand in the hiring of temporary and contractual workers so fresh hiring can be seen in this sector. For this festive season, e-commerce portals increased their temp headcount by 30-50 per cent year-on-year," he added.

However, automotive, real estate and manufacturing sectors are affected the most, he said adding it has seen around 2.3 lakhs of lay-offs, the highest in the last 20 years due to a dip in sales.

In the real estate sector, lakhs of jobs have been lost because of the low demand and liquidity crunch and according to estimates more than a million jobs will still be lost in the coming few months, he added.

Since there is a dip in the production in the manufacturing sector, jobs are being cut in this industry across the ancillary companies in food processing, auto and agriculture, he said.

Michael Page India Managing Director Nicolas Dumoulin opined that everything within the technology space is resilient today because there is already a shortage of good people within that particular field.

"Most companies know that they need to invest in technology to be future-ready. And there's a huge start-up community in India, which requires and thrives on tech. So these types of industries, which are looking at long term growth are typically tech-based. We have not had any reduction in hiring in this sector," he added.

He said, NFBC crisis, due to the liquidity crunch in the markets, investments have been altered in heavy capital equipment, real estate and so on.

These are industries, which are a little down under the pressure at this point and, therefore, if you look at their cost base, they would be more prudent in hiring and also maybe look at rationalising their debt to employees and staff.

Claricent Partners Managing Partner Jyoti Bowen Nath said many small and medium-scale companies have been forced to lay off lakh of employees over the past few months to reduce production costs.

Contractual manufacturing jobs, associated with the auto sector would also be at risk because of the consumption slowdown with India being a caveat venditor market.

Having said that there are automobile companies who are being innovative to beat the blues, he said adding that some of them have a strong focus on electrical vehicles, some have diversified into electric bikes as well.

Lifesciences, foods FMCG, consumer staples remain fairly buoyant, she said.

Food companies are also on the growth mode especially many homegrown Indian businesses who are now expanding and attracting their CEO's and leadership team from professionally run Indian companies as well as multinationals.