E-commerce companies and startups are ramping up hiring, with technology and supply chain experts much in demand, as they look to strengthen business backbone and scale up.
The sector is expected to add more than 44,000 new jobs in the first half of this fiscal year, according to TeamLease Research, with high demand for professionals likely to push up compensation levels. Companies including Swiggy, Oyo, Byju’s, Extramarks and Zomato, are set to ramp up teams by at least 25% this year.
“As brands fight to take leadership positioning, big M&As, along with large capital infusion from PEs and VCs, has further pushed up hiring,” said Sangeeta Gupta, senior vice president, Nasscom.
The e-commerce market, pegged at $35 billion, is expected to grow by 25% in the next five years, as per a Nasscom-PwC India report.
“Salaries are moving up as the talent that the ecommerce and startups seek is in short supply. Wages, in some cases, are more than that of an entry-level engineer,” said Rituparna Chakraborty, co-founder, TeamLease Services. Entry level salaries for delivery executives are 23,000-28,000 per month on an average, compared to 15,000 per month for an engineer (from tier 2 and 3 institutes), she said.
Budget rooms provider Oyo is looking to double manpower from last year as it expands to newer international destinations.
“As we expand, we are bringing in diverse talent from different parts of the world. While our origins lie in India, we actively encourage teams in international markets to act and think like local entrepreneurs,” said Dinesh R, Chief Human Resources Officer, Oyo Hotels & Homes.
Oyo’s projections indicate that it would create twice the number of direct jobs than it did last year, with business development and technology as the priority areas.
“The industry is grappling with high attrition rates due to the limited talent pool,” said Ankur Pahwa, National Leader – E-Commerce and Consumer Internet, EY India. Cyber security experts, cloud architects, data scientists, new market entry/city heads, AI experts and blockchain professionals are high on the search list.
“Gig economy employees, may it be first- and last-mile logistics, warehousing, transportation support etc, will continue to be critical hiring for most companies going forward,” Pahwa said.
Online marketplace Snapdeal, which is almost through with its restructuring exercise, is now looking to strengthen its technology team. Over the next year, the company is expected to hire about 120 engineers.
Food delivery app Zomato, too, is hiring for new geographies, in addition to technical talent. Zomato has doubled its engineering team in the past year and will continue to invest heavily in technology.
Food delivery app Swiggy has hired many in leadership and senior roles in the last 18 months. These include its first COO and CFO, CEO and the COO for new supply business line, head of engineering and several VPs for other functions. “We have grown our teams locally in tier 2 and tier 3 cities. Overall, our employee count has increased by 3x in the last 12 months,” said a Swiggy spokesperson.
