With the government unlocking India, various companies have upped their hiring to accommodate the demand boom for their products and services. This has opened up plethora of opportunities for job seekers looking for a stable income.

The IT industry should see about half of the top ten IT services companies requiring fresh, top-rated tech talent, almost a third of the remaining services pool, and almost 15 to 18% of the high-tech product / internet or GICs going for it. As the Covid-19 lockdown lifts gradually and people begin their return to workplaces, there are some pockets of hope for jobseekers.

Recruitment experts at Manpower, KellyOCG, PeopleStrong, and Xpheno predict that even as many sectors see widespread layoffs, there will be a silver lining in sectors like edtech, ecommerce/internet, transport and logistics, as well as pharma that continue to hire. All of these sectors will need to hire talent for various roles, said experts, and skills in machine learning, data, AI will command a premium. Supply is predominantly lower than demand in the transport and logistics sector, said Alok Kumar, senior director – Manpower. “Logistics platforms are already revamping their concepts to match the new market circumstances by enabling retailers to scale home delivery fast. E-commerce companies will need to hire for last-mile delivery executives and warehouse profiles,” Kumar told ET. Edtech platforms and office automation companies are expected to ramp up hiring plans, said Kamal Karanth, co-founder at Xpheno, a specialist staffing company. “Other sectors that will need to hire talent include pharma, medical devices and healthcare companies, which have seen a boom during the lockdown and will require talent in sales and marketing, engineering, research, as well as testing and customer support.” Given that the lockdown is rolled back some time by the end of May or June in a phased manner (in the metro locations particularly), the annual absorption of top tech talent is likely to be around 75,000 (best case scenario), says Karanth. The IT industry should see about half of the top ten IT services companies requiring fresh, top-rated tech talent, almost a third of the remaining services pool, and almost 15 to 18% of the high tech product / internet or GICs going for it. The pharma sector will have jobs up for grabs in testing, research and sales, said Devashish Sharma, founding member at human resources solutions firm Taggd by PeopleStrong. The new role of crisis manager will be in demand across sectors, said Francis Padamadan, senior director – RPO, KellyOCG. “Companies will want professionals who can help mitigate risks and losses from such similar global crises in future, and help coordinate smooth business continuity planning.” Companies that ET spoke to are ramping up their headcount. Edtech startup Testbook, which helps students prepare for government jobs, said it is scaling up content and increasing the current team size by 25% over the next six months, said CEO Ashutosh Kumar. Telemedicine startup ekincare – which services employees of 600-plus companies and their dependents – has witnessed a 221% rise in online doctor consultations since the emergence of the first Covid-19 cases in India, said Kiran Kalakuntala, its founder. “Since we have doctors on our own payroll, we may need to ramp up our team of doctors over the coming months,” Kalakuntala said. Logistics company Ecom Express will be hiring ground and frontline staff, and in other roles in data sciences, IT development, planning and engineering and strategy, said co-founder K Satyanarayana. Other companies like Razorpay, CSS Corp and Dream11 will be hiring as well.