Professionals are proactively looking out for new positions as their companies are taking the restructuring route, either through complete layoffs or conversion to a gig workforce. This has made the job of recruiting companies easier as compared to pre-lockdown times.

Placement firm TeamLease Services has received 22,367 resumes in May from hospitality sectors alone, up a staggering 444 per cent from 4,109 in the previous month. Professionals who are proactively looking out have either been handed out pink slips or are facing job threats as their companies take the restructuring route, said executives aware of the matter. New Delhi: Lockdown-driven layoffs and fear of job loss have resulted in an increase of at least 30% in job-seekers’ resumes in the past 30-45 days, according to at least half a dozen recruitment firms ET spoke to.

Sectors such as entertainment, hospitality, aviation, tourism, travel and retail, real estate, manufacturing and construction have been among the worst-hit due to the lockdown. Workers from these sectors are therefore at the forefront of those seeking new job opportunities. Placement firm TeamLease Services has received 22,367 resumes in May from hospitality sectors alone, up a staggering 444% from 4,109 in the previous month. Professionals who are proactively looking out have either been handed out pink slips or are facing job threats as their companies take the restructuring route, said executives aware of the matter. Some said the worse might be over for the job market, with companies slowly getting back to work. “Most organisations are now moving towards non-employee cost reduction methods, and unless we see another wave of the pandemic, we may have very well crossed the jobs crisis,” said Lohit Bhatia, president-workforce management, Quess. Randstad India, another recruitment firm has also seen 25% jump in CVs over last 50 days, said its head, strategic account management, Sanjay Shetty.

Besides, some sectors such as pharmaceuticals, healthcare, global development centres, education, financial services and IT/ITES are hiring as they have not been impacted much by the lockdown. “As revenues of companies have declined sharply across sectors, albeit in varying degrees, several sectors are optimising their employee costs,” said Aditya Mishra, CEO, CIEL HR Services. Mostly junior and mid-level employees have been hit across functions such as sales, recruitment, supply chain, business analysis and after-sales service. TeamLease Services has received 34,786 resumes in May from delivery executives, as against 22,122 resumes received in April. At senior and leadership management the increase in resumes is more than 20% whereas at mid-level it is 30-35%, according to Sunil Goel, managing director, GlobalHunt, another recruitment firm.

This has made the job of recruitment firms simpler because before the pandemic, they had to headhunt and map the skillset from company to company. “Now more talent is directly approaching us,” said Goel. Before the pandemic salary expectations were 30-50% higher which has come down sharply to 15-25% due to fewer opportunities in the market, said executives. Instead of opting for layoffs as a way of cost cutting, some companies are choosing to convert their permanent employees to a gig workforce, with a lower fixed income and higher variable component, said Devashish Sharma, chief business officer, peoplestrong. Salary cuts across mid-management to senior management have been about 15-20%. “We do expect increase in loss of pay and furloughs in the coming days,” said Rituparna Chakraborty, co-founder, TeamLease Services. The number of inbound candidate enquiries and resumes received has grown 15-30% for different cadres of skillsets at Xpheno. “With some of the players like Ola reporting a 95% drop in revenues post lockdown, the overall projection of short-term retrenchment across startups and unicorns is 25-30% of workforce,” said Kamal Karanth, co-founder, Xpheno.