MUMBAI: Recruitment agencies are facing a new challenge: While there are more

in the south thanks to a surge in startups, e-commerce and retail firms, the talent is in the north.

The south accounts for close to 40% of Randstad India’s recruitment for its clients, followed by the west at 28%, north at 25% and the east at 7%. For

, 40% of overall job positions are for the south. The figure would touch 70% if south and west are combined. Rituparna Chakraborty, co-founder, TeamLease Services, said: “People follow

and move where there is surplus demand for talent. At this point, that’s from north to south.”

Tally Solutions, a Bengaluru-based company that offers business management software solutions, has been recruiting from north India. Kankana Barua, chief people officer at Tally Solutions, said: “Companies facing a crunch in talent above mid-levels are looking for talent across India, especially from the north.”

The old reluctance to move to a city with a different language and cuisine is also eroding. Barua said that if a company provides good growth opportunities, people are ready to relocate. The influx of people from different regions to Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Chennai is creating cultural diversity. “I now see people conversing in Hindi in Chennai, for instance,” said Barua.

The south is home to three of India’s seven largest urban centres and accounts for more than half the total jobs created in the formal sector. The emergence of the IT industry as the single largest employer of graduates has played a significant role.

The three southern IT hubs of Chennai, Hyderabad and Bangalore account for more than 60% of the workforce employed by the sector, as per industry estimates. Chennai and Hyderabad are hubs for manufacturing and infrastructure too.

Paul Dupuis, MD and CEO, Randstad India, said: “The south will continue to lead the way in job creation, specifically in IT and related roles, given the headstart the region has in terms of the number of companies, presence of a qualified talent pool, quality educational institutions, and relative proximity of the three major urban centres.”

Naresh Rajendran, HR head, Grundfos India, which is headquartered in Chennai, said the company does not find it hard to hire talent willing to move to the south. He added that there is a trend of knowledge and blue-collar talent moving from other regions to the south, for IT, automotive, retail, e-commerce and infrastructure jobs.