According to a survey released on Wednesday, hiring patterns in the Indian white-collar labor market were steady in March.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI-ML) had a big impact, with employment increasing by 25% year over year (YoY), although the majority of key industries stayed strong and concluded around last year’s base.

According to the research, despite the fact that March had two longer holiday weekends due to Holi and Eid, these patterns show resiliency and indicate strong momentum.

However, a few industries had negative results compared to March 2024: education (-14 percent), retail (-13 percent), and oil and gas (-10 percent).

“We anticipated a few brief declines because of the long March vacation weekends. A positive conclusion for us, nonetheless, is that the majority of the key sectors and the overall Index remained steady compared to the previous year. The March trends were brightened by strong growth in areas like AI-ML, new technologies, and the senior professionals’ cohort, according to Dr. Pawan Goyal, Chief Business Officer of Naukri.

It’s interesting to note that the IT industry’s emerging-tech subsector, which includes businesses using blockchain and cryptocurrency, grew by 36%. Additionally, in March 2025, IT startups had an increase of 11%.

With a +29% increase in unicorn hiring this month, Chennai became the unicorn recruiting powerhouse. Hyderabad contributed its own spark with a +17% rise, while Delhi NCR came in second with a +23% gain.

Unicorns in banking and financial services were especially active, showing a strong +36% increase in hiring, thereby countering the cautious tone of the larger market.

Specialized technology positions were clearly preferred, according to the employment market. According to the research, machine learning engineers topped the table with an astounding +88% rise, followed by search engineers at +39% and investment banking analysts at +35%.

The media, entertainment, and design industries were unexpectedly strong areas, while the bigger sectors exhibited moderate development.

In Mumbai, the media sector had a +9% rise and an astounding 22% surge in the hiring of new employees.

According to the research, entry-level hiring in the architectural and interior design sub-sectors increased by +27 percent, while the design sector as a whole had a +30% YoY gain.