With technology replacing a lot many traditional jobs, the year passing-by appears to be a transition year for the employment space with hiring for several entry-level profiles taking a big hit in 2018 and average salary hikes remaining static in a range of 8-10 per cent.
Going forward, experts and hiring managers are hopeful about more than 10 lakh new jobs in the new year, though salary hikes may still remain the same. However, people in some specific evolving skills may get much more.
Employers are expected to keep a cautious approach at least in the first half of 2019 due to evolving political uncertainties relating to national elections, despite employment generation being a key poll plank for almost all political parties.
Job creation has been a subject of big debate in the recent past, as despite a fast face of overall economic growth, the level of employment generation has not kept pace with an estimated 12 million people entering the labour market each year in the recent years.
The experts rue that the situation has been further confounded by lack of sufficient, credible and periodic data on job creation.
Following the twin disruptions of demonetisation and the implementation of GST in the previous year, 2018 has still turned out to be a year of recovery for the Indian job landscape.
The industries that are directly correlated to government schemes for infrastructure, roads, highways and airports may proceed cautiously till at least May 2019, by when the new government is expected to be in place.
Other sectors, whose products and services are dependent on local consumption and exports, are expected to go ahead with expansion and recruitment plans.
Other sectors that showed improvement this year include infrastructure, manufacturing, retail and FMCG, while the job scene for banking, financial services and telecom appeared difficult.
