IT, banking & healthcare sectors witness highest employment growth despite pandemic : Study

Biznextindia : While COVID-19 induced lockdown has severely affected employment in most of the sectors, two sectors – IT and Banking have not been affected by the pandemic. These two sectors have witnessed highest growth in FY20 and FY21, according to a study conducted by Care Ratings.

The study, which included 969 companies across 30 sectors, has said that IT, Banking and Healthcare were the major contributors to the employment growth amid the pandemic.

Total 10 out of the 30 sectors have witnessed improvement in employment. Apart from these 3, the other sectors with positive employment growth were chemicals, FMCG, consumer durable goods, paper, plastic products, logistics and telecom.

However, the rest 20 sectors witnessed negative growth as the lockdown severely affected their operations. The sharpest decline in employment defined as above 10,000 in a sector was witnessed in retailing, mining, iron and steel, finance, infrastructure, media & entertainment.

In percentage terms the fall in employment was highest for hospitality and media followed by retail and iron and steel. A prolonged lockdown and slow resumption of activity affected these sectors quite perceptibly, the study report said.

The study also revealed that, of the 969 companies 516 had increased their average pay while 427 had lowered the same. 26 had virtually no change in the average compensation.

Employment to increase from FY 23

Care Ratings has estimated that with the economy slated to back to high growth path from the next financial year, overall employment in the corporate sector will rise.

“An economic recovery is on the cards this year with growth expected to be 9-9.2% which should stabilize employment. We believe that 2022-23 will be the year that can see more generalized increase in employment in the corporate sector as growth in FY22 will be localized to industries that are already on the high growth path like BFSI, pharma, FMCG,metals, chemicals among others. A factor working in our favour is the sharp growth witnessed in exports which is expected to be sustained in the second half too with the world economy looking up” said Care Ratings.