Manufacturing, IT, media professionals least confident about future opportunities: LinkedIn

New Delhi [India], May 5 : Professionals in manufacturing, IT and media feel their companies will fare worse in the next six months, according to LinkedIn's second workforce confidence index released on Tuesday.
On the other hand, the survey findings show that professionals in healthcare, education and corporate services industries (like management consulting, accounting, and human resources) are the most confident about the future of their companies.
LinkedIn's second workforce confidence index shows a slight dip in the overall confidence towards future opportunities with a composite score of plus 51 (a rolling average of weeks April 1 to 7 and April 13 to 19) as professionals foresee testing times ahead.
This is two points less than last fortnight's score of plus 53. A tough jobs market, pay cuts and an ailing economy are suspected to have caused unrest among Indian professionals as findings show that one in three Indians reported a decrease in personal incomes while 48 per cent of active job seekers and 43 per cent of full-time professionals anticipate fewer job openings in the next two weeks.
Online learning continues to see a steady rise in demand as 67 per cent professionals (in comparison to 64 per cent professionals from last fortnight) will increase their time spent in online learning while 37 per cent of Indian companies (in comparison to 31 per cent from last fortnight) will offer online resources to professionals in India.
The index also explains that the perception of people towards challenges depends on how confident they are.
Findings show that people with a high confidence index consider working remotely and changing communication methods as key challenges while those who are less confident cite job uncertainty, job market, finances, and social and health impact as bigger professional challenges.
Monitoring these challenges during different stages of the pandemic can articulate how confidence influences an individual's outlook towards future opportunities.
The workforce confidence index is a fortnightly pulse on the confidence of the Indian workforce. It uses a scale from minus 100 to plus 100 to reflect professionals' current sentiments about the jobs market, their financial status, career progression and their expectations going forward.