New Delhi: A positive trend in recruitment is expected in smaller towns and mini-metros during the first half of 2012 on the back of increased hiring in sectors such as engineering and manufacturing, says a survey. According to the survey by recruitment tendering platform MyHiringClub.com, hiring activities are expected to grow by 11 percent in Tier-II cities such as Pune and Hyderabad during the January-June period of 2012 compared to the year-ago period. In addition, 8 percent growth in recruitment activities may be witnessed in Tier-III cities like Jaipur, Ghaziabad and Kochi during the first half of the 2012 from the year-ago period. Tier-II and Tier-III cities seem to be gaining ground, compared to the metros as companies continue to look at them as cost-effective destinations. "Employees from these cities are having very low attrition rate and cost effective compare to metros. That's the main reason where employers had started preferring candidates from these cities," MyHiringClub.com CEO Rajesh Kumar said. Manufacturing and engineering, retail, FMCG, banking and financial services and IT/ITeS are major sectors that would see maximum hiring from smaller cities during the period under review and the survey expects that similar hiring trend will continue during the second half of the year as well. In terms of sectoral analysis, the manufacturing and engineering space is expected to account 28 percent of total hiring from tier-II and III cities followed by FMCG (18 percent), retail (17 percent), IT and ITeS (17 percent), automobile (15 percent ),insurance (14 percent), banking and financial Services (11 percent) and telecom (9 percent). Pune and Chandigarh would contribute 26 per cent of total recruitment in first half of 2012 followed by Ahmedabad (22 per cent), Lucknow (21 per cent) and Jaipur (18 per cent). The survey was conducted among nearly 1,000 employees and recruitment consultants across 12 industry segments (healthcare, infrastructure, hospitality, real estate and construction, BFSI, IT and ITeS, training and consulting, FMCG, telecom and automobile) in 112 cities.