New Delhi, Apr 3 (IANS): Job vacancies in the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) sector have seen a significant year-on-year (YOY) growth in March, according to a report on Monday.

The report by job platform Naukri showed that insurance and banking sectors are witnessing a secular bull run in new job creation, significantly contributing to the upward hiring trend in the overall white-collar job market of India.

The new jobs created in the insurance sector recorded an astonishing 108 per cent growth in March 2023 compared to March 2022, primarily driven by jobs related to selling insurance products.

The banking sector displayed a 45 per cent YoY growth fuelled by the expansion of digital banking services in the rapidly evolving global economy.

The promising aspect of this growth is its geographical spread where vacancies in cities as diverse as Ahmedabad, Vadodara and Kolkata increased by 145 per cent, 72 per cent, and 49 per cent respectively.

The new job creation spread across both global capability centres of multinational BFSI giants as well as the domestic financial stalwarts focused on selling insurance and banking products to the Indian consumers.

"The BFSI sector's growth in a cautious job market signals resilience of the Indian economy and the expanding horizons of the white-collar job landscape. Non-metro cities are proving to be the catalysts for change, redefining the employment narrative in India," Pawan Goyal, Chief Business Officer, Naukri.com, said in a statement.

The IT sector, on the other hand, witnessed consolidation in hiring with a decline of 17 per cent in new jobs created compared to March last year.

The hiring intent declined across both large IT giants and unicorns, while hiring for early-to-mid stage startups remained stable with respect to the same period last year.

Vacancies for high-demand roles such as big data engineers, DevOps, and software development engineers, which were on a growth path until recent times, have declined in March 2023 by 20 per cent, 9 per cent, and 6 per cent, respectively. However, the demand for emerging roles like machine learning saw an uptick, the report showed.

New jobs created in other non-tech sectors such as oil, real estate, FMCG, and hospitality increased by 36 per cent, 31 per cent, 14 per cent, and 7 per cent, respectively, compared to last year's base.

However, specific non-tech sectors such as retail, education, and BPO, exhibited cautious hiring sentiment with a 4 per cent, 2 per cent, and 2 per cent decline in hiring activity, respectively, according to the report.