IFTA 2026: India has voted. See the winners.

White-collar hiring in India rose 14 per cent year on year in October 2026, according to the Naukri JobSpeak index, a sharp jump from just 2 per cent growth in September. The number needs context. In October 2025, Diwali and Dussehra fell in the same month and hiring dipped 9 per cent, so this year’s comparison starts from an unusually low base.

Underneath the headline, though, the report shows where real demand is building: factory floors, AI roles and entry-level jobs.

Job interview across a desk in a bright office

Reading the 14 per cent

The Naukri JobSpeak index stood at 2,836 in October, up from 2,480 a year earlier. That 2,480 was itself the result of a 9 per cent year-on-year fall, which Naukri blamed on the “Diwali-Dussehra festive cluster” slowing recruitment.

Compare October with the month before and the picture is calmer. The index was at 3,053 in September 2026, so the index actually fell from September to October. September’s growth over the previous year was only 2 per cent.

Info Edge, which runs Naukri, says as much. “Some of October’s growth reflects last year’s festive-season base, and we should read it in that light,” said Hitesh Oberoi, Managing Director and CEO of Info Edge (India) Limited.

Factories lead the hiring

The strongest growth came from manufacturing. Production and manufacturing functions rose 39 per cent across sectors. The automobile sector grew 36 per cent, with auto R&D roles up 53 per cent and procurement and supply chain up 50 per cent.

The pattern repeated elsewhere in industry:

Heavy machinery: production roles up 40 per cent, quality assurance up 41 per cent
Construction, engineering, cement and metals: production up 33 per cent, project and programme management up 25 per cent, site engineering up 20 per cent
FMCG: up 6 per cent overall, with production up 40 per cent but sales and business development down 5 per cent

“Manufacturing companies are building capacity, and demand for AI skills remains strong,” Oberoi said. For job seekers, the takeaway is that companies are hiring to make things, not just to sell them.

AI is up, plain coding is flat

Tech hiring split in two. AI and machine learning roles grew 32 per cent, up from 20 per cent in September. Global Capability Centres, the in-house tech and operations hubs that foreign companies run in India, grew 18 per cent, against 4 per cent a month earlier.

The wider IT and software services sector grew only 5 per cent. Broad software engineering and QA roles across all sectors grew just 1 per cent. In other words, general coding jobs barely moved while AI-specific work grew fast.

BPO and ITES hiring rose 17 per cent and banking and financial services 16 per cent. Inside BPO, the growth was not in call-centre work: customer success, service and operations roles were flat, while finance and accounting jumped 84 per cent and software engineering and QA rose 42 per cent.

Freshers and Gujarat gain

Fresher hiring grew 15 per cent in October, a big change from 1 per cent growth in September. Senior professionals did even better, with hiring for both the 13 to 16 year band and the 16-plus year band up 22 per cent.

Among metros, Hyderabad led with 15 per cent growth. The standout region, though, was Gujarat: Gandhinagar grew 48 per cent, Surat 36 per cent, Vadodara 30 per cent and Ahmedabad 23 per cent. That lines up with the factory-led growth seen across sectors.

What to watch

November will be the real test. Last year, hiring bounced back after the festive lull: the index hit 3,001 in November 2025, up 23 per cent year on year, and Naukri reported 6 per cent combined growth for October and November. That makes November 2025 a high base, the opposite of October’s easy comparison.

If manufacturing, AI and GCC hiring keep growing against that tougher base, the October numbers point to a real shift. If the overall figure slips back towards September’s 2 per cent, October was mostly a calendar effect. Freshers in particular should watch whether entry-level growth holds, since 15 per cent in one month does not yet make a trend.