However, the hiring outlook remains uncertain for sectors like real estate, textile and retail sectors, it believes.

Another global HR consultancy Mercer believes that hiring plans by the companies would depend on their business prospects in the coming year.

Among the major companies planning to hire big time, SBI is planning to recruit 25,000 employees by March. Besides, its life insurance venture, SBI Life, is looking to hire 13,000 agents and 200 sales managers.

Besides, the country's second largest public sector lender PNB and Union Bank are also hiring 5,000 people each, while Indian Overseas Bank, South Indian Bank and IDBI Bank are bringing on board 1,000, 12,000 and 650 employees, respectively.

Among life insurance firms, Reliance Life is hiring 90,000 agents and 2,500 managers, Metlife has announced plans to hire 30,000 agents and 2,000 managers and Max New York Life is recruiting 30,000 agents and 14,000 managers.

Among other sectors, BPO major ACS is hiring 1,000 employees, while health care solutions provider Accentia plans to add 5,000 staff to its payrolls.

" Exponential growth had resulted in a culture where mediocrity flourished. 2009 is an opportunity for companies to bring the performance orientation back into how they manage their human capital," Mercer India Information Product Solution business leader Gangapriya Chakraverti said.

Global HR consultancy major Manpower believes that hiring outlook for the first quarter of 2009 was the weakest since 2005.

Expressing similar views, leading job portal Naukri.com's owner InfoEdge India CFO Ambarish Raghuvanshi told PTI that hiring was going to be slow in the first quarter of 2009 as recruitment trends are impacted by the slowdown in economic growth and decline in business confidence in the country.

He, however, added that some improvement was likely in the second half of calendar year 2009.