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This year is turning out to be one of the most difficult ever for placements at the top IIMs of Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Calcutta, Lucknow, Indore and Kozhikode, officials and students across institutes told ET. Many did not wish to reveal their identity or their institute.

The MNCs are also moving an increasing number of global and senior-level roles to the GCCs in India. This is prompting them to woo top talent by paying higher than the compensation offered by many in the technology industry including products, services and tech-enabled startups (barring a handful of large IT firms), they said.

Lemon Tree, Pepe Jeans, KFC, JW Marriott, Wow! Momo Foods, and Shoppers Stop are among the cos offering front-facing roles to PWDs, and some of these firms are looking at increasing the number of such employees by 100% or more in FY25, their executives said.

Wipro and Infosys are pursuing legal action against former executives joining Cognizant, raising questions on non-compete clauses' validity in India. While Wipro sued ex-SVP Mohd Haque and CFO Jatin Dalal, Infosys accused Cognizant of unethical hiring. Experts note the challenges enforcing non-compete clauses due to constitutional rights. Past cases lack significant precedents. The desperation to retain talent amid a sluggish market and geopolitical uncertainties might be driving these legal battles among IT giants.

At least half a dozen sectoral bigwigs are leading from the front in hiring in 2024. Top companies like L&T, Tata Steel, PepsiCo, Airtel, ITC, among others, told ET that their hiring plans are on track for the coming year mostly due to expansion of existing operations, bringing cheer to the otherwise muted job market.

Non-metro cities and towns in India surpassed metros in adding white-collar jobs in 2023, with Tier-II, III, and IV cities accounting for 1.7 million new job opportunities, compared to 1.5 million in Tier-I cities, according to a study by recruitment startup My RCloud.

Tech firms such as Accenture, IBM and Genpact have lost talent, said the people, along with Infosys, Wipro, TCS, HCL Tech and Tech Mahindra, with some of their senior executives moving either to consulting roles as Partners or senior level implementation and operations roles at the top four professional services firms.

The median CTC in FY24 stands at ₹20 lakh versus ₹22 lakh in FY23 and ₹19 lakh in FY22, as per an analysis of placement data from IITs by Careernet. The highest overseas package offered this year was ₹3 crore, up from ₹2 crore in the previous year. The analysis is based on the salary packages offered in the first one week of the current placement season across 22 IITs.

Prepared in 1998, the MoP is a set of documents which guide the appointment, elevation and transfer of high court judges. Since Supreme Court judges cannot be transferred, it guides their appointment and elevation.

The government has put a cap on the number of chief general managers, general managers and assistant general managers a state-run bank can have, based on their business size. For instance, a bank with an annual business size of ₹1.6 lakh crore can have a maximum of 12 general managers.

Net headcount addition in FY23 surged 61% over FY22 and is expected to beat the record high of FY11. The record additions are being driven by aggressive hiring by private banks across functions such as customer interface, lending, assurance, and technology to drive their branch expansion into tier 3 and rural areas.

The findings across 700 companies show about 47% of firms intend to have 10% of their total workforce as apprentices in the next 6 months, while a substantial 31% are currently maintaining an apprenticeship share of 5-10% within their organisation.

Tribunals, specialised regulators drive mid-to-senior legal practitioners to start their own boutique firms as cases increase.

The number of first-time workers entering the formal job market declined in September, with both the Employees' Provident Fund (EPF) Scheme and Employees' State Insurance Corporation experiencing a decline in new enrollments. The EPF scheme saw a 6% drop in new enrollments, while the ESIC, catering to lower-paying jobs, saw a 4.7% decline.

Industry officials, however, said the impact of the cut down in hiring is mostly at the senior management and director levels, while companies continue to hire at the top, or the partners level. "Hiring of partners or people who bring in business is pretty aggressive. It is the middle that is suffering, also due to a fall in exits," said a partner.

The scramble for the best and the brightest legal talent has been ignited by a constantly changing regulatory environment, rising focus on corporate governance and ethical standards, and regularly evolving GST structures. This is leading to a massive churn in CLOs, said HR consultants and company officials.

Overall job creation, however, remains muted in the metros as companies tread cautiously amid macroeconomic and geopolitical headwinds, according to staffing companies such as Teamlease Services, Xpheno and Foundit.

The firms that participated in Cluster 2 for the PGP class of 2025 comprised seven cohorts - advertising and media, consumer electronics, consumer goods & durables, consumer services, conglomerates, retail B2B & B2C, and pharma and healthcare. "We saw a large pool of recruiters offering around 60 roles in the process," the institute said.

In October, white-collar job hiring in India experienced a 1% sequential decline and a 3% year-on-year decrease, impacted by heightened geopolitical tensions and macroeconomic challenges, according to findings from talent platform foundit (formerly Monster APAC & ME). Despite this, sectors tied to festive and year-end demand, such as hospitality, travel, tourism, retail, and shipping and marine, witnessed increased recruitment activity.

At least one in two Indian employees are worried about losing their jobs to AI compared to one in three in developed countries, according to the findings of Randstad work monitor quarterly pulse survey shared exclusively with ET.