New Delhi, Dec 3 : Driven by the reopening of the retail, hospitality and education sectors after a long 18-20 months of pandemic-driven lockdowns, India saw a 26 per cent (on-year) growth in hirings in the month of November as compared to last year, a new report showed on Friday. Retail sector with 47 per cent growth picked up a strong pace in hiring, showing signs of recovery in the festive season, according to the latest Naukri 'JobSpeak index.' Another sector which traditionally benefited in the festive season was hospitality/travel (+58 per cent). In a bid to fall back to normalcy, schools are primed to reopen across the country and the education sector (+54 per cent) experienced a resultant uptick in hiring. "Being two of the worst impacted sectors of the pandemic, the hospitality/travel and retail industry have stood out in their recovery. Riding the festive wave in the past few months, these sectors have grown by 63 per cent and 56 per cent annually from September-November 2021," said Pawan Goyal, Chief Business Officer, Naukri.com. Hiring in metro and tier 2 cities recorded 39 per cent and 16 per cent average annual growth, respectively. Continuous growth of the IT-software and BFSI sectors have enabled metro cities to outperform their tier 2 counterparts in the annual growth charts, the report said. Among the non-metros, Ahmedabad (+61 per cent) witnessed maximum growth in November, followed by Coimbatore (+28 per cent). Hiring across all experience bands was positive as compared to the same period last year, with demand for senior professionals belonging to the 8-12 yrs (+37 per cent) bracket witnessing maximum traction, the report mentioned. /IANS