Ecommerce companies shopping big time for temporary staff

Ecommerce companies are driving demand for temporary staff this festival season, accounting for as much as 60 per cent of the short-term jobs being created, as they go on an overdrive to win market share in the most lucrative few months of the year. Brick-and-mortar retailers as well as consumer durable and telecom players are also hiring staff on a temporary basis.

Flipkart, Snapdeal, Amazon, LG, Samsung and Panasonic are among the companies that are set to ramp up temporary workers by up to 35 per cent to see them through the expected surge in demand. The trend is gaining steam in smaller towns as well, and most of the staff demand is in sales, logistics and customer support.

“Hiring in the ecommerce industry has become more skewed towards season. We see an increase in demand as well as compensation by 10-12 per cent compared to last year,” said Guruprasad Srinivasan, president, people and services at Quess Corp.

According to estimates, between 60,000 and 80,000 temporary jobs would be created in the organised sector alone this festival season while the unorganised sector would hire more. “Ecommerce companies account for over 60 per cent of the demand,” said Rituparna Chakraborty, senior vice-president at TeamLease Services.

Other staffing firms such as Kelly Services, Manpower and Randstad said while ecommerce continues to dominate, retail and telecom are going strong as well.

Moorthy K Uppaluri, managing director at Randstad India, said companies are expected to strengthen manpower by 20-30 per cent.

Flipkart, which kicks off its Big Billion Day event on October 2, is expected to hire more than 10,000 temporary staff to ramp up its delivery and logistics service to meet festival season demand.

Rival Snapdeal said the Diwali run-up would see the creation of nearly 10,000 temporary jobs from September 15 to November 15.

Amazon, which will be launching its Great Festival Sale in October, has launched six new fulfilment centres (FC) cater to the festive demand. “These new FCs will create direct employment with a mix of full time and temp staff,” said Raj Raghavan, director-HR at Amazon India.

Staffing sources said mandates from Samsung and LG have nearly doubled while Hitachi and Bata are also recruiting. Big brands are going into small cities and towns for better market coverage, they said. Hyperlocal firms such as Swiggy are also hiring temporary workers, they said.

“A lot of the consumer durable companies want freshers for which we have tie-ups with colleges,” said Vishnu Dev, director-manpower at ManpowerGroup.

At Panasonic India, Ajay Seth, head of sales and service, said the company has placed almost 34 per cent extra temporary staff compared with last year.

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This article was first published in Economic Times