Formal jobs surge in India even as global hiring slows: Indeed
Bangalore, 13 June 2025: Recent data from global matching and hiring platform Indeed, showcases that in May, Indian job postings on Indeed rebounded strongly, up 8.9%, following eight consecutive monthly declines. However, they are 1.8% lower than a year ago and around 16% below their peak. Despite trending downwards recently, Indian job postings are almost 80% above pre-pandemic levels. That ranks highly compared to other major Indeed markets, although it isn’t a like-for-like comparison.
Several countries, led by the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Switzerland, have posting volumes that are currently below pre-pandemic levels. By comparison, India’s posting volumes are very healthy.
Callam Pickering, Indeed’s APAC Senior Economist, said, “Indian job creation continues to outpace other countries because of the nation’s transition towards more formal economic arrangements. As the nation transitions, job creation across the formal sector will be much stronger than overall employment growth nationwide, and we have consistently seen that in recent years. Other economies are not going through a transition of this nature.”
Job postings in around 80% of occupations in India increased over the past three months. Gains were largest in childcare (+27%), personal care & home health (+25%), education (+24%), and production & manufacturing (+22%). These gains more than offset some weakness in sectors like dental opportunities, down 10.2% over the past three months, along with agriculture & forestry (-8.6%), community & social service (-6.8%) and software development (-4.2%).
While software development opportunities have declined recently, the sector continues to have the largest volume of job opportunities on Indeed, accounting for around one-in-five Indian job postings. It highlights how prominent the tech sector has been to India’s emerging formal sector, with multi-nationals trying to tap into India’s large talent pool.
Generative AI jobs continue to surge
Indeed’s data shows that, as of May 2025, 1.5% of Indian job postings explicitly mentioned generative AI in their job descriptions, more than doubling over the past year.
Generative AI opportunities are concentrated in the tech sector, but are increasingly widespread. Around 12.5% of data analytics roles mention generative AI, ahead of software development (3.6%) and scientific research (3.1%). It’s also commonly mentioned across a range of office roles, including marketing (1.1% of job postings) and management (0.9%).
Regional hubs have emerged for jobs that either use or help develop generative AI. In Karnataka, 2.4% of job postings mention generative AI, just ahead of 2.3% in Telangana. Maharashtra has the second-largest volume of generative AI opportunities and the largest volume of total job opportunities, but it’s mentioned in just 1% of job postings.
Job creation across India’s formal sector remains strong and rose sharply during May. This continues to facilitate a shift from lower-productivity to higher-productivity work as workers transition into the sector. While there is no shortage of workers in India, finding the right set of skills continues to be challenging in some cases.
