Recruitment marketplace Indeed has announced Hindi-language support across its web and mobile app services in India.
The company told media that users will now be able to find and apply for jobs and create resumes in Hindi, the official language of India. The addition of Hindi is part of the Recruit Holdings-owned company’s ‘Help People Get Jobs’ initiative, which will see more regional languages added in the near future, it said.
Last year, professional networking site LinkedIn added Hindi language support, tapping into a predominantly Hindi-speaking, underserved segment in India. LinkedIn said the move was aimed at catering to 600 million people who speak the language, globally. Indeed’s move is likely to reflect the same objective.
“The Indian labor force is very young and is growing and changing at an incredible rate. We’ve seen that the number of people visiting Indeed in India has more than doubled in two years. India is one of Indeed’s largest markets and this traffic growth is a testament to people in India finding jobs online more than ever before,” said Sashi Kumar, head of sales at Indeed India, commenting on the launch.
“Indeed is deeply committed to helping all people get jobs, and investing in language support is critical to assisting all Indian jobseekers to find the opportunities that are right for them.”
Citing an earlier census, Indeed said that Hindi is spoken by over 43.6% of the population in India. Despite 125 million Indians possessing a working knowledge of English, there is a strong preference for regional languages. While there are 22 major regional languages in India, the nation is also home to a whopping 19,500 mother tongues.
Indeed’s survey also revealed that the need for regional-language support is high among blue/grey-collar workers looking for employment in food delivery and chauffeuring, among other unorganized sectors. Around 32% of such jobseekers do not have a working knowledge of English, and 62% of them do lack access to job information. Increasing linguistic support could enable job portals to tap into this segment.