Workforce Challenges in Quick Commerce: Scaling Under Pressure

As quick commerce continues its run through India’s urban landscapes, it is facing a paradox: it’s never been easier to scale fast, and never harder to sustain that scale reliably. Beneath the façade of 15-minute delivery promises lies a fragile workforce architecture grappling with churn, cost, and capacity constraints.

The TeamLease Employment Outlook Report HY1, FY 2025-26 sheds light on the top five workforce-related challenges in the sector:

Attrition among gig and delivery workers tops the list (31%)—a structural issue rooted in platform-switching behavior, lack of long-term incentives, and the transitory nature of gig work. While flexible labor laws have enabled rapid expansion, they’ve also normalized high turnover. For platforms, this means constantly rebuilding their last-mile engine—often from scratch.

Scalability and time-bound hiring (25%) remain persistent friction points, especially during seasonal surges, flash sales, and hyperlocal expansions. With delivery SLAs now forming the backbone of customer loyalty, delays in onboarding—even by days—can directly elevate churn risk. In a model where minutes matter, talent pipelines must move as fast as the product.

Rising cost pressures (18%) are forcing a rethink of gig incentive models. With customer acquisition offers, free returns, and tight delivery SLAs compressing margins, platforms are finding it harder to balance wage inflation in metros and tier-1 cities with sustainable unit economics. The competition is fierce, and every rupee saved or lost at the labor level adds up at scale.

Skill development gaps (14%) are exposing another Achilles heel. As delivery operations evolve with AI-powered routing, live customer communication, and automated check-ins, the tech readiness of the last-mile workforce is under strain. Most are onboarded with minimal training, creating an execution gap that could widen as digital systems scale.

Worker productivity and punctuality (12%), while ranked lower, are mission-critical in <15-minute delivery zones. With narrow margins for delay or error, even minor inefficiencies can disrupt urban microfulfillment models, impact NPS, and ultimately derail profitability.

This article was first published on Business of Food