The upcoming festival season will see a surge in demand for gig workers as quick commerce firms such as Zepto, and Swiggy Instamart to online retailers like Meesho, Amazon and others anticipate a spike in demand for goods.

Industry sources see companies such as Flipkart, Amazon and Meesho, along with quick commerce firms like Blinkit, Zepto and Swiggy Instamart, creating hundreds of thousands of seasonal jobs.

Hiring surge

These companies are likely to hire up to 20 per cent more during the festival season compared to last year, according to staffing firms. To meet the demand, e-commerce firms are planning to hire additional personnel as many as 1 million gig workers and 250,000 contractual workers, according to a report by TeamLease services.

“Meesho aims to enable approximately 2.5 lakh seasonal job opportunities through partnerships with third-party logistics players such as Ecom Express, Delhivery, Shadowfax, Xpressbees and Valmo. Over 60 per cent of these position will be from tier-3 and -4 regions. These roles will primarily involve first-mile, middle-mile and delivery associates responsible for tasks such as delivery picking, sorting, loading, unloading and return inspections,” said Sourabh Pandey, GM, Fulfilment & Experience at Meesho.

Early indicators suggest that hiring will increase in specific sectors such as e-commerce, and logistics for gig workers, while the BFSI segment will primarily focus on staffing during the festival season.

“We estimate that over 500,000 personnel are hired across sectors during this 5-6 months period and this is divided into both Gig as well as staffing associates. E-com and logistics will primarily hire up to 70 per cent of this demand as gig workers, the remaining 30 per cent coming from staffing. The other segments of Retail, Consumer, and Financial services primarily hire as staffing during the festival season and retain many among them as long-term associates post the season, based on their expansion plans as well as performance by the said workforce,” Lohit Bhatia, President, Quess Workforce Management.

The change expected is creating increased demand and hiring in tier-2 and tier-3 towns due to increased customer acquisition from these cities and towns, noted Bhatia.

“We are already noticing a near 15-20 per cent increase in the overall hiring intent that is visible from open mandates which are up 20 per cent compared to the average of the past 3 months, in all likelihood, this should continue to remain strong,” he added.

Quick commerce will possibly have the highest growth in terms over their base owing to their expansion into both newer markets and newer categories, noted Balasubramanian A, Senior VP and Business Head at General Staffing, TeamLease Services.

Quick commerce player Zepto plans to hire around 500 people across engineering, product, growth and marketing roles as it aims to double its dark store count to 700 by March 2025.

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