With the festive season just around the corner, e-commerce and logistics companies are prepping up as a result of which around three lakh jobs are expected to be created. The report by consulting firm RedSeer said that nearly 70% of these three lakh jobs are likely to be offered by e-tailers like Amazon and Flipkart.
Most of the hiring is temporary and done in advance to prepare for the rush of orders during the festive sale period. About 20% of these temporary workers will be retained at the end of the festive season, the report added.
Logistics functions are expected to account for 60% of these roles, while warehousing and customer service functions are likely to contribute 20% each.
Flipkart announced earlier that it will be hiring around 70,000 people ahead of the festive season while also creating indirect jobs at Flipkart's seller partner locations and kiranas. This will be further supplemented by job creation in ancillary industries including vendor locations, and freight partners, as the entire ecosystem scales up for the festive season, Flipkart said at the time.
Amazon India on Wednesday announced that it has created more than 100,000 seasonal job opportunities ahead of the festive season across its operations network in the country. The new seasonal positions will help boost the company’s fulfilment and delivery capabilities to meet the surge in customer demand this festive season, the company said in a statement.
The new associates will join Amazon’s existing network of associates and support them to pick, pack, ship and deliver customers’ orders safely and efficiently. The company has also generated tens of thousands of indirect opportunities through its partner networks such as its trucking partners, packaging vendors, ‘I Have Space’ delivery partners, Amazon Flex partners and housekeeping agencies among many others to support the exponential demand during this period, Amazon said.
On the logistics front, supply chain services provider Delhivery said on Wednesday that it aims to create 15,000 seasonal jobs and that openings span over last mile, first-mile pickups, hubs, service centres, including security personnel and drivers. The company said it will improve last-mile delivery capacity through its various partner programmes, on-boarding individual bikers, transporters, local kiranas, and businesses.
"Our overall physical footprint across India has doubled in the last one year to over 12 million sq ft, including the launch of mega trucking terminals in Bilaspur, Bhiwandi and Bengaluru ahead of the festive season," said Sandeep Barasia, Managing Director and Chief Business Officer at Delhivery.
"In line with our original plan, we will invest over Rs 300 crore on expansion in the coming 18-24 months, increasing our fleet size and setting up more mega trucking terminals,” he added.
Huge demand is witnessed during the festive season, especially in categories like electronics, fashion and home furnishing.
RedSeer said the daily average e-commerce shipments during festive days may see 1.8X jump to 22 million as compared to last year.
Hyperlocal shipments are expected to grow by 250%+ over 2019 and backend infrastructure creation prior to the festive month will create 300,000 new temporary and permanent jobs.
"We expect the total shipments during festive sales for the first event to grow 60 per cent y-o-y (year-on-year) over CY2019 (calendar year) to reach 150 million," the report said.