Location-agnostic hiring to increase in 2022: Report

Increased adoption of technology will boost the demand for talent in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) roles, with investments in the fields of AI and ML in India expected to continue to grow at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 33.49% till 2023, a report has said.

The year 2022 will also be marked by location-agnostic hiring with an increase in demand to hire across tier-2 cities in the coming months. With a number of employees preferring remote working and staying in their hometowns, organisations are considering setting up smaller offices in tier-2 cities or utilising co-working spaces to provide employees better resources and access to technology, according to the findings by jobs portal monster.com — a Quess company.

Roles in learning & development, travel, consumer analysis, and lead nurturing will see a spike in demand, with companies looking to enhance customer engagement. Increasingly, organisations are adopting chat bots, which are forecast to empower approximately 45% of organisations’ customer support services by 2022.

Big Data Analytics roles will also witness a huge demand in 2022, as 96% of companies are planning or likely to plan to hire staff with relevant skills to fill future big data analytics-related roles in 2022. Data science, cloud computing and machine learning roles captured most of the e-recruitment market.

One of the biggest beneficiaries of the tech surge has been the financial technology sector, which is estimated to become the third largest market in the world by 2025, the monster.com report said, quoting industry estimates. “The future holds increased digitisation and digital adoption opportunities across the industry, with a positive outlook for talent demand in the sector,” it said.

The Indian IT industry, which has continued to hire through the course of the pandemic, will exhibit similar trends in 2022. “It is encouraging to note that the IT industry is forecasted to grow 7% in the current year, and likely to see gross employee addition of around 4,50,000 in the second half of FY22,” the report said.

Digital skills will continue to be in demand and rapid tech expansions in BFSI and cryptocurrencies will boost the requirement for these further. The top skills organisations are on the lookout for are data science, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, blockchain, and machine learning.

Apart from tech roles, which cut across verticals, 2022 will see an increase in demand for sales professionals. The requirement is expected to be in industries such as fintech, retail, e-commerce and social commerce.

Sekhar Garisa, CEO, monster.com, said, “We are optimistic about paving the way for better employment opportunities in 2022. The future of work is location-agnostic and hybrid, with increased skilling initiatives being undertaken by both employers and employees. Further, leading tech-enabled industries such as IT, FinTech, BFSI, and crypto will continue to flourish with talent demand spikes. It is also interesting to note that employee flexibility would be critical towards retaining talent in the future, and the Great Shuffle is a reinforcement of how the huge demand in the jobs market is opening the door for employees to select a career of their choice.”