E-commerce hiring set for takeoff; 50,000 jobs likely in 2-3 years

At least one in every nine students graduating from the 2015 batch across IITs is likely to join an e-commerce firm or a start-up, according to recruiters. E-commerce companies are expected to make a minimum of 1,000 job offers during the first quarter of 2015 to meet aggressive growth plans.

The booming Internet commerce sector (e-commerce) was one of the major growth drivers of the economy in 2014. The nascent, yet growing, industry not only played a crucial role in generating new jobs but also in perking up salaries.

Rajiv Kumar, CEO, Manusis Technologies, said e-commerce will continue to grow faster than expected due to better economic growth and an investor-friendly and more focused government. This will fuel ancillary and related businesses such as digital payments and social media, leading to more jobs.

With frontrunners like Flipkart, Snapdeal, Amazon, MakeMyTrip, Goibibo, Bookmyshow and Facebook, the $18-billion industry saw a 100 per cent rise in jobs across all levels in various verticals, said recruiters for e-commerce firms and start-ups.

The recruitment firms believe that as the industry matures and evolves from e-commerce to mobile commerce, the sector will continue to hire more fresh recruits, and also focus on specialised skills such as software product development, app development, data analytics, and quality and process.

In India, most e-commerce firms increased salaries by 10-40 per cent in 2013 and 2014 and are paying annual salaries of ₹10 lakh to ₹23 lakh at the entry level.

At mid- and senior-level too, the salaries are rising by 10-15 per cent every year and employees are given stock options. The upscale is driven by robust positive sentiment both amongst consumers as well as the industry. The trend is likely to continue, say experts.

“Although e-commerce has been around in India for the last 15 years, the ecosystem has started to fall in place now. Today, India is in the middle of a digital revolution. The coming year will also see several new start-ups doing only mobile commerce. This will open up a lot of job opportunities in India in 2015,” Kumar added.

Rajiv Burman, Managing Partner of recruitment firm Lighthouse Partners, said in the last six months, the e-commerce sector witnessed several top-level hires with corporate honchos from telecom, logistics, retail and other dotcom companies joining the sector attracted by higher salaries, equity ownership and fast pace of growth.

At the CEO level of larger start-ups like Flipkart or Myntra, one earns between ₹1 crore and ₹2 crore as salary plus stock options. Similarly, a merchandising manager who earns ₹10-15 lakh in a retail firm, can expect double in an e-commerce company.

Besides, the war for talent is turning fierce as large business houses including Reliance Industries, Aditya Birla, Tata, Future Group and Arvind Retail are now clashing with early movers Flipkart, Snapdeal and Jabong to hire managers. With foreign players such as Amazon, Rakuten and Alibaba expanding aggressively, hiring is expected to grow by over 30 per cent and may create up to 50,000 jobs in the next 2-3 years, says human resources consultancy Randstad India.