Bengaluru, Sep 24: TeamLease Services, India’s staffing conglomerate, has released its Employment Outlook Report for HY2 FY2026–27. The report projects a Net Employment Change of 5.4%, rising from 4.7% in HY1 FY2026–27 and marking the highest level recorded across the last four half-year periods. The improvement reflects strengthening employer confidence, with 60% of organisations planning to expand their workforce, 24% expecting no change, and 16% anticipating a reduction.
Economic conditions emerge as the strongest factor influencing workforce size, cited by 67% of employers, followed by organisational dynamics such as growth or restructuring (43%) and technological advancements (40%), which continue to shape hiring decisions.
Sectors leading the employment surge include E-commerce & tech start-ups, leading at 12.6% NEC, followed by Travel & Hospitality at 12.3% and Retail at 10.3%. Automotive (10.1%), EV & EV Infrastructure (9.7%) and Banking (9.2%) also show strong hiring intent, reflecting continued demand across digital, consumption-led and emerging sectors.
Hiring intent also rises with organisational scale, with 66% of large enterprises planning to expand their workforce, compared with 59% of medium-sized enterprises and 53% of start-ups, micro and small businesses. At the city level, Bengaluru leads hiring intent at 68%, followed by Hyderabad at 61% and Pune at 60%, with Pune recording the largest gain this half-year.
However, the ability to convert hiring intent into actual workforce expansion remains closely linked to talent availability. Among employers planning to grow their workforce, 72% expect moderate to significant difficulty in hiring, with IT (39%), Sales & Marketing (38%), and Engineering (32%) emerging as the functions facing the highest anticipated hiring challenges. The average time-to-fill for roles stands at 35–45 days, with specialist and site-based positions taking longer.
Hiring demand is also concentrated in functions that directly influence business growth and transformation. 64% of employers plan to expand Sales & Marketing teams, followed by IT at 50% and Finance at 48%. At the same time, skills demand is evolving, with digital literacy (59%), customer experience management (51%), communication skills (48%), and adaptability (44%) emerging as key capabilities employers are seeking.
Commenting on the findings, Balasubramanian A, Senior Vice President, TeamLease Services, said,
“The employment outlook reflects a shift towards more targeted workforce expansion, with businesses aligning talent decisions closely with changing demand. The challenge now is to ensure that hiring plans translate into the right capabilities on the ground. This will require employers to widen talent pools, build skills faster and adopt more flexible workforce models. At the same time, the measured pace of AI adoption suggests that organisations are still finding the right balance between technology and human capability.”
The report also highlights a widening gap between AI adoption and workforce-wide AI integration. While 85% of employers report some level of AI or GenAI use, only 13% have adoption across more than half of their workforce. This indicates that AI adoption remains broad but shallow, with organisations largely integrating AI tools into existing roles rather than undertaking extensive workforce redesign.
These insights are drawn from a survey of 1,239 employers across 23 industries and 20 cities, conducted between July and August 2026.
