New Delhi: The recruitment levels for the pharma sector in India witnessed a decrease of five percent in October 12, when compared to last month. This negative trend has been continuously happening for the last four months, with hiring in October 2012 being 12 percent lower than June 2012.

These index numbers are in line with what was predicted by the pharma sector recruiters in a survey where 11 percent of them had indicated hiring freeze. Most of the them have said that they will adopt a cautious approach and will not go over board.

According to Naukri.com's (India's leading online job site) job index, a year-on-year comparison indicates a marginal dip in hiring levels. The key pharma hubs of the country, namely Chandigarh, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad also saw decline in their hiring levels by nine, eight percent and two percent respectively in the month of October as compared to the same period a month ago.

Commenting on the trend, Mr Hitesh Oberoi, CEO, InfoEdge India, said that, "Most employers are cautiously optimistic about their hiring plans. Recruiters will continue with selective hiring for the next few months."

The Naukri job speak index for the pharma sector shows that there might be high volatility for certain fringe cases like smaller cities, and niche industries among others, owing to a small base, but more than 42,000 clients using Naukri.com leads to high reliability of the data.