Tech hiring is slowing down in India, even non-tech roles demanding AI know-how: Study

A new study from jobs portal Indeed suggests tech hiring in India is slowing down. Interestingly though, more and more hiring is being done with expectation that the applicant has AI know-how.India’s job postings reportedly rose 1.2 per cent in JulySomething has changed in the job market. Software engineering is not the hottest job anymore in India; rather, it's medical technicians and childcare workers. According to a fresh report, while tech-related hiring remains sluggish, AI is moving beyond AI-focused roles and increasingly becoming part of everyday jobs.Latest data from the job-hiring platform Indeed shows India's job market just snapped out of a three-month slump (April to June), with postings rising 1.2 per cent in July and now sitting 8.3 per cent higher than a year ago. But if we dig past that one headline number, the real story gets a lot more interesting.While healthcare is having a moment, tech is catching its breathWhile the overall job market is recovering, it isn't recovering evenly. Roles in healthcare and the broader care economy are surging, with medical technicians up 30 per cent, physicians and surgeons up 26 per cent, childcare roles up 26 per cent, and therapy roles up 25 per cent. Meanwhile, tech hiring is quietly cooling off in the background. IT infrastructure, operations, and support roles fell by 24 per cent, software development dropped by 18 per cent, data and analytics slid by 14 per cent, and IT systems and solutions declined by 11 per cent.To be fair, tech hiring isn't collapsing; it's just no longer the golden child leading the charge, at least not for now. Even if you're not in tech, AI is now part of the job descriptionEven as tech hiring slows down, the demand for AI skills is quietly creeping into jobs that have nothing to do with tech at all. Indeed found that 349 distinct job titles in India, about 6.6 per cent of everything it tracks, now feature meaningful mentions of AI. That number has doubled in a single year and nearly quadrupled over two years.Even more telling, non-tech roles now make up 42 per cent of these AI-touched job titles, up from 39 per cent last year and just 29 per cent two years ago. In plain terms, AI isn't just creating brand-new tech jobs anymore, it's quietly rewriting the expectations for jobs that have existed for decades, from marketing to logistics to, presumably, roles you'd never have guessed needed an "AI-savvy" tag a few years back.So while the tech hiring engine takes a breather, the expectation to actually know how to use AI has never been higher, whether you're coding software or running a hospital ward. India's job market isn't slowing down so much as it's rearranging its priorities, and AI seems to be quietly sitting in the driver's seat regardless of which industry you're in.- EndsPublished On: Aug 26, 2026 16:48 IST