During the year of 2011, many jobseekers had quite a tough time finding employment. It was definitely a discouraging year for those who were seeking employment, especially since the economy, which has been in recovery since 2009, seems to be making progressing at such a slow pace, it has just been very challenging for people to find jobs. And, while many people have higher hopes for 2012 in terms of finding the employment they have been searching for, it is expected that finding a job and long-term employment will only become even harder during the year of 2012, according to a survey provided by Business Today-TeamLease. Many of the employers are not currently looking to hire employees. When it comes to certain sectors, people seem to be getting worried because of the actual lack of jobs.

During the quarter of April through June and July through September in 2011, the Employment Outlook Index stood at about 74. Trends for the year show that about three of the eight sectors included in the survey, which includes 610 different companies, have had an improvement on recruitment and job growth. The three sectors are financial services, health care, and pharmaceuticals.

The other five sectors out of the seven sectors, including retail, manufacturing and engineering, and telecommunications, IT, ITES, and FMCG, have all had either negative growth or absolutely no growth during this period of time. The Employment Outlook Index for both IT and ITES sectors actually dropped by four and two points between the last quarter and the present quarter. The instability is discouraging and has left many people worried about the future in terms of what to expect when it comes to employment.

SangeetaLala, the cofounder at TeamLease, has said, “FMCG is one sector that gets hit when other important service sectors don’t do well and consumer spending takes a hit.” MuraliSanthanam, the Executive Vice President, HR, CavinKare, has said, “The FMCG sector will follow a hectic hiring pace in the coming three to six months.” She also says, “This is a slow period, but from April onwards it will pick up.”

The survey, aside from evaluating the companies and their recruitment and growth, also evaluated the business sentiment. The Business Outlook Index provides information on how well the respondents are expecting their business to improve in terms of growth and expansion along with recruitment within the months of January through March, along with those who were expecting it to decline. Those who did expect their business decline was actually at 73, which was up by one point from the period of October through December. And, within the past twelve months, there has actually been a decline from 76 to 73 instead.