The rapidly growing e-commerce industry is becoming a job generator, with 1 lakh temporary jobs being added in the quarter ending December 2014 vis-a-vis 30,000 last year. In addition, there has been an up to 100% jump in salaries of temporary workers in certain entry-level roles in this sector compared with last year, according to the top staffing companies in India.
Staffing companies expect that for the next three years, the hiring of temporary workers will grow at a steady 60%. With around 70-80% of volumes or sales occurring in the weekends or in the festive season, e-commerce companies rely greatly on temporary staffing.
"As the volumes of these companies grow, the temporary staffing numbers are expected to grow in tandem," says A G Rao, group managing director, ManpowerGroup India.
According to India Staffing Federation, the number of temporary jobs added last year in the same quarter was at around 30,000. Staffing companies like ManpowerGroup, Teamlease, Randstad, Kelly Services, Global Innovsource, are all cheering this trend as they are the first to benefit. Further, they are closely watching this space for more players like Alibaba to make an entry as they expect the demand for temporary staffing to further rise with growing competition.
Flipkart, Jabong, Amazon, Snapdeal and Caratlane are among many e-commerce players hiring temporary staff, according to Suchita Dutta, executive director, Indian Staffing Federation. The requirement for temporary staffing in e-commerce is mainly for delivery, warehouse, online marketing and customer services.
"The salary offered to field staffers is at around Rs 15,000. A project based back-end staff 's salary is up to Rs 50,000 while temporary staffers in functions like HR, finance and IT (all at junior levels) earn about Rs 55,000. The salaries across all these functions at the junior level have moved north by up to 100% when compared to the beginning of calendar 2013," she adds.
The salaries of delivery boys and staff for project based back-end at the entry level have shot up by 100% while the paychecks of the remaining temporary staffing workforce catering the e-commerce has gone up by 60%.
Kelly Services vouches that e-commerce players have been the highest users of temporary staffing in the past two years. This staffing company has just closed an order of 2,000 delivery boys for a leading e-commerce player and another 600 delivery boys for yet another player in the same space. "We are hopeful of closing more such partnerships for providing staffing as we are in talks with other players too. This festive season itself the demand for staffing is likely to rise more than 50%," says Kamal Karanth, managing director, India & Malaysia, Kelly Services. Seeing the potential of the e-commerce, Kelly Services has put together a separate dedicated team where a dozen professionals from e-commerce and related fields have been roped in.
Another staffing firm, Randstad, is looking at yet another aspect of delivery. The company observes a very high attrition of as much as over 100% in delivery. "If 100 delivery boys join this January then next January all are sure to be gone," said Aditya Mishra, president staffing, Randstad India.
The company is trying to address the high attrition from two ends. One, it has started a real job preview for the potential hire for delivery where in the candidates are given a preview of the new job. At the customer end (e-commerce players), Randstad is trying to help them in streamlining their operational processes. "As these delivery boys are sent to new localities every day , their burnout rates are very high. However, if they are sent to same areas then their efficiency will surely rise and end attrition," says Mishra. Randstad sends out 65,000 people as flexible staff to various sectors each day.
Within e-commerce alone, Global Innovsource Solutions, has placed 2,500 temporary workers. The company has further received orders from half-a-dozen e-commerce companies for a requirement of 5,000 people in flexi-staffing, according to its COO and director, Raja Sekhar Reddy.
The flexi-staffing industry in India is around $3 billion to $4 billion in size and is growing at 15% year on year, says Rao.
Jabong has temporary staffing for most of its functions like buying, sourcing, warehouse, HR and technology. "In peak time, most of the warehousing work is handled by a temporary staffing company," says Ashu Malhotra, HR head at Jabong. While e-commerce will not impact all of the retail sector, jobs may shift from organised retail.
"The societal upside of this shift is that most jobs in e-commerce are not at the front end so they do not require more advanced skills. That means that labour market outsiders (people from small towns, less skilled or women looking to re-enter the labour force) will get greater opportunities," says Manish Sabharwal, co-founder and chairman of TeamLease.
Staffing companies expect that for the next three years, the hiring of temporary workers will grow at a steady 60%. With around 70-80% of volumes or sales occurring in the weekends or in the festive season, e-commerce companies rely greatly on temporary staffing.
"As the volumes of these companies grow, the temporary staffing numbers are expected to grow in tandem," says A G Rao, group managing director, ManpowerGroup India.
According to India Staffing Federation, the number of temporary jobs added last year in the same quarter was at around 30,000. Staffing companies like ManpowerGroup, Teamlease, Randstad, Kelly Services, Global Innovsource, are all cheering this trend as they are the first to benefit. Further, they are closely watching this space for more players like Alibaba to make an entry as they expect the demand for temporary staffing to further rise with growing competition.
Flipkart, Jabong, Amazon, Snapdeal and Caratlane are among many e-commerce players hiring temporary staff, according to Suchita Dutta, executive director, Indian Staffing Federation. The requirement for temporary staffing in e-commerce is mainly for delivery, warehouse, online marketing and customer services.
"The salary offered to field staffers is at around Rs 15,000. A project based back-end staff 's salary is up to Rs 50,000 while temporary staffers in functions like HR, finance and IT (all at junior levels) earn about Rs 55,000. The salaries across all these functions at the junior level have moved north by up to 100% when compared to the beginning of calendar 2013," she adds.
The salaries of delivery boys and staff for project based back-end at the entry level have shot up by 100% while the paychecks of the remaining temporary staffing workforce catering the e-commerce has gone up by 60%.
Kelly Services vouches that e-commerce players have been the highest users of temporary staffing in the past two years. This staffing company has just closed an order of 2,000 delivery boys for a leading e-commerce player and another 600 delivery boys for yet another player in the same space. "We are hopeful of closing more such partnerships for providing staffing as we are in talks with other players too. This festive season itself the demand for staffing is likely to rise more than 50%," says Kamal Karanth, managing director, India & Malaysia, Kelly Services. Seeing the potential of the e-commerce, Kelly Services has put together a separate dedicated team where a dozen professionals from e-commerce and related fields have been roped in.
Another staffing firm, Randstad, is looking at yet another aspect of delivery. The company observes a very high attrition of as much as over 100% in delivery. "If 100 delivery boys join this January then next January all are sure to be gone," said Aditya Mishra, president staffing, Randstad India.
The company is trying to address the high attrition from two ends. One, it has started a real job preview for the potential hire for delivery where in the candidates are given a preview of the new job. At the customer end (e-commerce players), Randstad is trying to help them in streamlining their operational processes. "As these delivery boys are sent to new localities every day , their burnout rates are very high. However, if they are sent to same areas then their efficiency will surely rise and end attrition," says Mishra. Randstad sends out 65,000 people as flexible staff to various sectors each day.
Within e-commerce alone, Global Innovsource Solutions, has placed 2,500 temporary workers. The company has further received orders from half-a-dozen e-commerce companies for a requirement of 5,000 people in flexi-staffing, according to its COO and director, Raja Sekhar Reddy.
The flexi-staffing industry in India is around $3 billion to $4 billion in size and is growing at 15% year on year, says Rao.
Jabong has temporary staffing for most of its functions like buying, sourcing, warehouse, HR and technology. "In peak time, most of the warehousing work is handled by a temporary staffing company," says Ashu Malhotra, HR head at Jabong. While e-commerce will not impact all of the retail sector, jobs may shift from organised retail.
"The societal upside of this shift is that most jobs in e-commerce are not at the front end so they do not require more advanced skills. That means that labour market outsiders (people from small towns, less skilled or women looking to re-enter the labour force) will get greater opportunities," says Manish Sabharwal, co-founder and chairman of TeamLease.
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