Pune has emerged one o the country’s top employment destinations, with the having left behind even metros like Chennai and Hyderabad as a job destination. An ASSOCHAM survey has ranked Pune fifth among the top 10 most job-oriented cities in the country, and the leading employment destination among tier-2 cities. In most of these cities, it's financial services that are creating the most jobs.

Pune has a share of 16.5 per cent of the employment among tier-2 cities and 8.9 percent overall. The top five sectors generating jobs in the city are IT, ITeS, banking, education and automobile.

The survey was conducted three weeks ago for jobs from January to March. It’s the IT sector that topped the list in providing the highest number of white-collar jobs during the first three months of the year. However, in tier-2 and tier-3 cities, it’s the financial services sector that is leading in providing employment to aspirants. D S Rawat, ASSOCHAM secretary general, noted this in the study.

Koteshwar Prasad Dogha, spokesperson for ASSOCHAM, said the survey found that despite the metropolitan cities offering most job avenues, high cost of manpower and capacity constraints are pushing industries to expand in smaller cities; here the tier-2 cities are doing a great job of providing avenues and opportunities.

Partha Iyengar, vice-president and head of research for Gartner India, said that though it's a little surprising to see financial services overtaking IT. Yet, he said, it's perhaps logical, given the IT-driven influx that has in turn led to the release of financial services.

“The sheer number of branches of banks and the few global captive centres in satellite areas around Pune are probably the reason that this sector rivals IT. But the difference has to be marginal, because the financial services cannot compete with IT in terms of volumes. Each IT centre employs 1000-2000 heads. Where the banks probably make up is in their sheer numbers of branches. Also if you see the kind of employment egnerated in areas like Chakan because of the manufacturing industry, it's easy to see why Pune has outstripped even some of the metros," he said.

The study noted that Pune is an emerging city in the software industry, with an already strong manufacturing foothold with industry giants and factories in various sectors.

The ASSOCHAM Research Bureau (ARB) tracked data for 60 cities and 30 sectors offering job opportunities in the country. The report is based on the sample of 32,000 vacancies being offered in the organised sector. Of the 60 cities, seven were tier-1, 14 tier-2 and 39 tier-3.