Top 5 Industries in need of Employees – India

Recent economic reforms and business-friendly initiatives by the Indian government have pushed India to become one of the world’s largest emerging economies.

In 2017, India became the 6th world’s largest economy and if we believe CEOWORLD magazine’s projections, it will supersede Great Britain to bag the 5th position in the global economic race in the next few years.

While the prediction depicts India as a highly lucrative market to invest in, it also gives some positive clues about the future of the Indian job market. In recent years, we have seen some serious job cuts in some sectors, but at the same time, new industries have also come into being that created ample job opportunities across the country.

At this point, the employment trends fluctuate every now and then, depending on the industry types. In other words, the supply and demand of any specific goods or services at a given time play a crucial role here. This simply means, that when the demand rises, more labor is required to meet the same, translating to more job opportunities. However, when it lowers, the results are surely not pleasant. And, you know very well how badly it affects the workforce; be it in India or anywhere else!

However, amid all fluctuations, there are several promising sectors in India that are less likely to disappoint you as a working professional in the coming years. But, before heading on to that, first, explore what are those factors that have been influencing the Indian job market for quite a long time.

Factors that influence the Indian Employment Market

Major factors that have been known to significantly impact the Indian job market are the ones that shall continue doing so in the coming years too. All these factors fall under three major categories.

1. Globalization: The intensity of exports from Indian manufacturers/suppliers, the use of exponential technology by developed economies and its effect on offshoring, the impact of the foreign job market on the Indian workforce, and the amount of FDI flow in India.

2. Demographics Fluctuations: Expanding middle-class section of the society, a major chunk of the population comprising young people, and growing urbanization.

3. Exponential Technology Adoption by Industries across India: The advent of connected/smart services and products, development of highly optimized supply chains, business, and technological innovations, and increasing need for sustainability and new business models.

Thriving Sectors in India with Great Job Prospects

Although the volatile nature of the factors discussed above will continue to influence the Indian job market chart, job seekers must focus on the below-discussed sectors that are either already booming or highly anticipated to flourish in near future to create umpteen job opportunities:

Pharma and Healthcare

It is pretty evident from numerous reports that the healthcare domain will continue to benefit the Indian economy while adding more job opportunities to the Indian employment market.

Here, one important thing to be marked is that the Indian healthcare sector has an edge over other developing economies in becoming an international hub for medical tourism. This is because the medical care costs in India are remarkably lower than in developed countries.

The country certainly has to go a long way to be at the forefront of drug research and parents; but as far as disposable income is concerned, Indian does have great market potential. This, in turn, will help create many more jobs across various verticals, including HR, sales, IT, operations, and more within the health domain.

Telecommunications

To be true, the Indian Telecommunications sector is getting better with each passing year. India currently boasts an internet user base of 699 million people, which is the world’s 2nd largest. Recent government initiatives like Digital India have only added to this number, making people more technologically advanced with the increased adoption of mobile devices.

Major attention to mobile app technology along with other digital communications technology is sure to create more jobs in near future. Reports suggest that around 4 million indirect and direct jobs are expected to be created by the Indian mobile industry in the next few years.

Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO)

Recent reports suggest that the KPO sector in India has been observing substantial growth on a month-on-month basis. The need for a skilled workforce in the domain of big data is the major reason behind increasing job opportunities in the sector.

However, to secure a job in this sector and make the most out of it, it is recommended to develop skills and train oneself for jobs related to data mining, technical data extraction, and data management on the whole, among other specializations. Fortunately, the earnings one can make through such jobs are also fair, both for freshers and experienced candidates.

Retail

In a positive way, the Indian retail scene is also transforming gradually; mainly because of the emergence of many structured forms of retail chains in the market. Standing at 3rd position after China and Brazil, the Indian retail industry is expected to grow by approximately 400 million by 2020.

The tax regime (GST) soon after demonetization has compelled Indian retailers to adopt new and organized forms of managing customers. This eventually has generated a demand to hire skilled and experienced professionals to plan and execute various functions in the retail sector.

Media and Entertainment

According to PwC reports, the Indian media and entertainment industry is expected to expand at a 10.55% compound annual growth rate, leaving behind the global average rate of 4.2%. This growth trend is quite evident with an increasing number of theme parks, multiplexes, and similar entities across the nation.

The present slowdown in the Indian employment market is expected to get a major up-thrust by this trend. Recent industry-specific law reforms will further add to this surge to create more jobs across the sector.

E-Commerce

Given the market share of e-retail giants like Flipkart, Amazon, and PayPal, the e-commerce sector is not going to witness a rollback anytime soon. In fact, employment opportunities in the e-retail sector are estimated to grow at a rate of nearly 15 percent.

The government too is also making efforts to boost this sector for economic and employment-related benefits with its excellent initiatives, such as Skill India, Digital India, and Startup India.

Interestingly, not only such industry reforms have helped rural artisans and skilled women to get employment but showcase their talent to the world through e-commerce channels.

The sector is expected to create and maintain a stable job market while symbiotically assisting other sectors, including SMEs, IT, and logistics, among others.

By 2020, this sector will offer employment to around 1.45 million people, according to a KPMG report.

Information Technology

Although the IT sector is hugely blamed for many layoffs in the last couple of years; several reports suggest that it has still one of the largest employment-generating sectors in India.

However, in the forthcoming years, the IT sector is going to bounce back with the adoption of emerging technologies like machine learning, neural networks, robotics, and artificial intelligence (AI).

This will directly influence the job market and is expected to grow by around 20%. It is also estimated that while both fresh gads and seasoned professionals will be equally benefitted, their average salaries are also expected to grow by 13%.

Also by 2020, two million additional jobs are speculated to be added to the Indian IT industry worldwide with Indians contributing to nearly 13% of this figure.

Financial Services

If reports from the Financial Express are to be believed, the Indian banking and financial sector (BFSI) will probably require a whopping workforce of 9 million people by 2020. As far as the salary of existing banking professionals is concerned, it is too expected to witness a growth of 12 to 14 percent in the coming years.

This job demand can be chiefly contributed to the departure of baby boomers from the sector. The void created by them will be filled by relatively younger millennials to manage and augment the cashless, digital economy.

The workforce that the BFSI employers are looking for will mainly consist of 40-50% millennials, between the age bracket of 27 to 34 years. With an employment growth rate of 10.5%, the sector will face a massive revival, only to generate more employment within the industry.

Bottomline

A lot of factors contribute to fluctuations in the job market not only in India but in other parts of the world too. These often bring a wave of job opportunities while many times, lead to a job crunch.

Indisputably, India’s revival as one of the world’s greatest emerging economies in recent years has put the country in the global arena as a market with immense potential for different businesses to grow and flourish across various sectors.

Despite all the turmoil in the job market, several sectors in India have continued to grow or are reported to perform phenomenally in the next couple of years. Not only will this strengthen the country’s economy but generate more jobs for the already existing pool of talented professionals as well as for the freshers, who will soon be joining this vast community.