New Delhi, Apr 11 (IANS): Online recruitment activities rose 12 per cent year-on-year (y-o-y) during March, exhibiting highest growth for finance and accounts, and health care professionals at 32 per cent and 31 per cent y-o-y respectively, a report said on Wednesday.

The report said among the job intensive sectors, although the home appliances sector continued to lead the long-term growth chart with 49 per cent y-o-y growth, the momentum eased by 10 points during the month vis-a-vis February.

According to a Monster.com report, the home appliances sector was followed by production and manufacturing -- up 47 per cent -- which ranked second highest in the y-o-y growth chart.

The report said online demand in retail during the month under review matched that of February 2018 at 13 per cent.

As shown by the Monster Employment Index, sales and business development continued to be amongst the most demanded job role despite significant moderation in the pace of y-o-y growth rate from 37 per cent in February 2018 to 27 per cent in March.

"The economic reforms by the government seem to have started impacting the economy in a positive manner and the online recruitment activity around key sectors such as production and manufacturing can possibly be attributed to it," said Abhijeet Mukherjee, CEO, Monster.com-APAC and Gulf.

"The demand for professionals in finance and accounts can also be a resultant of the massive opportunity created by the GST reforms for people with know-how of the new tax regime," he said, adding: "The digital revolution is mirroring the substantial growth across sectors thereby, escalating opportunities and re-shaping the fundamental nature of work and iterating the constant need to upskill."

City-wise y-o-y growth data showed that among all monitored cities, Kolkata (up 33 per cent) recorded the most notable annual growth rate, however, the growth rate has decelerated significantly in the past months.

The report said Kolkata was followed by Chandigarh (up 29 per cent) and Jaipur (up 24 per cent).

"E-recruitment activity in Chennai saw a growth of 2 per cent in March 2018 down from 5 per cent in February 2018," said the report.

"For Delhi-NCR, the e-recruitment activity eased below the year-ago level by 2 per cent. However, Chennai, Bangalore, Kochi and Jaipur were the most active cities on a month-on-month basis, each registering an increase of 3 percent between February and March 2018," it added.