Source Financial Express

As many as 55-60% of the

Internet users in India are
seeking jobs on the net.
And given that Internet
penetration will only
increase, Indicus predicts
online job seekers will grow
three-four folds during the
next decade, to reach 100
million by 2020
Internet penetration in India has been slow and mainly an urban phenomenon.
Various estimates place this figure between 50 and 55 million. Interestingly, a very
significant proportion of the Internet users are job seekers. Research by Juxt Consult
indicates that as many as 65% have visited job sites. All of them may not be active
job seekers, but clearly a lot of them are.
The three-four leading job sites and the size of their resume databases (as indicated
on their sites) indicate that there are between 15 and 22 million active jobseekers on
each of these sites. Even if one assumes that a large proportion of these are present
on all the leading databases, one can realistically assume a figure of 28 to 30 million
active job seekers, which is abut 55-60% of all the people on the net at present.
Driven by high economic growth, availability of multiple devices for Internet access
and better Internet infrastructure, the Internet population in India is expected to grow
five-six folds during the next ten years. The future will, of course, see many different
users, including fun, entertainment and transaction. However, we also expect active
job search to remain a mainstay of the Internet in India. Driven by increased
penetration, growth in economic centres, and large numbers from the younger age
group (who are currently not job seekers), we expect the population of active online
job seekers to grow three-four folds during the next decade to reach 100 million by
2020.
There are various reasons why the job seekers are largely getting on the
net. The whole ecosystem of the Internet makes job search,
applications, getting alerts, etc, so much easier, that most active job
seekers find it more efficient to be on the net. However, since job
availability and the physical interviews continue to be concentrated
around the economic growth centres, active job seekers from small
towns and villages tend to either migrate to the growth centres or be off
the net.

What are the job seekers on the net like? Indicus conducted a research
to find out the profile of jobseekers in India, which, in turn, is a profile of
a substantial chunk of the Internet population in India. Our research has
been conducted over the past one year through various surveys over the
net. We present here some of the characteristics of the job seekers on
the net.

We already know that the active job seekers on the net are about 28-30
million. Apart from a very small percentage, they are mainly urban. In
fact, ten cities account for as many as 71% of the job seekers on the net.
The five metros—Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai, Bangalore and Kolkata (not
counting their satellites)—account for 48% of the online job seekers.
Pune and Hyderabad individually account for more job seekers than
Kolkata and Chennai, respectively, and online job seekers in
Ahmedabad are only slightly below Kolkata in number. The national
capital region (Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida, Greater Noida, Faridabad and
Ghaziabad) accounts for as many as 19% of the online jobseekers,
making it the largest cluster of online job seekers. Gurgaon, despite
being small in terms of population, has a particularly high concentration
of job seekers.
Fifty cities account for almost 90% of the jobseekers, and the top 20 cities account for nearly 81%. This,
more than anything else, is a clear indication of the skewed distribution of online jobseekers. There are
several reasons behind this, the key ones being economic opportunities and Internet penetration.

Women
The gender difference probably reflects the workplace gender difference (in the kind of organisations that
online jobseekers work). As many as 23% of the online job seekers are women. However, the proportion of
women among the online job seekers varies greatly across cities. In Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Bangalore,
Chennai and Pune, the proportion of women is significantly higher than the all-India average, whereas in
Delhi and Ahmedabad, it is well below the all-India average. Interestingly, the proportion of women is higher
in larger cities as compared to smaller cities in the same region.

Age distribution
As many as 97% of the job seekers are between the age of 20 and 45 years. In fact, two age groups (25-35
and 20-24) account for 88% of the job seekers, and these age groups are likely to remain active job seekers
even in 2020. The age profile indicates that given the rise of Internet penetration and the fast growth in the
economy, the number of active job seekers is likely to grow at a fast clip right through the coming decade. It
is also evident that as the years pass by and people age, the proportions of the higher age groups will
increase significantly.
Just like the age profile, the distribution by years of work experience is heavily skewed towards job seekers with
less experience. More than half the job seekers have two years of experience or less and a further 24% have
experience of six years or less. Only 4.5% of the active online jobseekers have more than 15 years of
experience. Again, we would expect that by 2020, the chart would be considerably different and even the 15
year-plus segment will have a considerably higher share.

Industry
Our research indicates that online jobseekers are now representing virtually all the major industries. The IT
sector, as expected, is the leading sector. However, as many as 78% of the job seekers are from other sectors.
BFSI, engineering and manufacturing, education and training, ITES, healthcare, core sector (oil, gas, power,
construction, etc) and telecom are the leading sectors represented by online job seekers. In the years to come,
we would expect the share of IT and BFSI to shrink somewhat and the share of most other sectors grow.
However, IT should continue to be the leading sector.
Hierarchy

It is evident that most online job seekers are young and

are likely to be in the lower rungs of corporate hierarchy.
In fact, top management accounts for just about 1% of
the job seekers, and senior management accounts for
another 5.4%. About 30% are very fresh and another
30% are at junior management level.

Educational qualifications

Engineers, MBAs and commerce graduates dominate

the online jobseekers space. Interestingly, non-
graduates/non-diploma (12 th pass) account for 4% of
the job seekers.

In conclusion

The online job space has grown tremendously during

the past ten years. It is set to continue to grow at a fast
pace during the next decade too. Whereas, younger
jobseekers will continue to be the dominant force, the
representation of higher age brackets is set to grow
significantly. Further, already most industry sectors are
being well represented in the online job space, and this
movement will continue. We also expect that as the
economy keeps expanding rapidly and Internet
penetration increases, the share of smaller cities in the
online jobseekers’ space will expand rapidly.