India Inc's hiring activity witnessed a marginal decline in the month of April, owing to the ongoing appraisal season, but overall industries are upbeat about their hiring sentiment and 2011 is expected to be a landmark year for job creation, job portal Naukri.Com says.

The Naukri Job Speak index for April this year stood at 1062, 2 per cent below the March 2011 index and 4 per cent above the April 2010 levels.

Commenting on the results, Info Edge India, which runs job site Naukri.com, CEO and MD Hitesh Oberoi said: "hiring tends to slowdown a little in the first quarter every year because of the appraisal cycle. We expect hiring to pick up again by June/July this year".

An industry-wise analysis shows that all the top industry sectors witnessed minor dips in their hiring activity.

Sectors like auto, banking, oil and telecom saw their indices dipping by 2 per cent in April this year over March 2011, while the BPO sector saw a 16 per cent dip in the hiring activity in April, 2011 when compared to the last month.

Meanwhile, the construction and engineering sector witnessed maximum movement in the employment front both monthly as well annually as the index moved up by 9 per cent in April, 2011 over March, 2011 and by 13 per cent over the same period last year.

Both IT and Capital Goods sector maintained steady hiring levels over the month, the report said.

A city-wise analysis shows that most cities have experienced a lull in hiring activity in April, 2011.

Among the metros only Mumbai maintained steady hiring levels, while Delhi and Hyderabad saw dips of 2 per cent, respectively in April, 2011 over March, 2011.

Bengaluru and Chennai saw dips of 15 per cent and 12 per cent, respectively in April, 2011 over March, 2011.