Festive Season – Front Line and Blue-Collar Temp Jobs positive on Hiring

• As the economy still continues to grapple under the unprecedented impact of the COVID19 pandemic and two major nationwide lockdowns, a rise in hiring sentiments among Indian Inc is expects in Q3 2021, ahead of the festive season especially for blue-collar and entry-level workers temp workers.
• As per Indian Staffing Federations’ Annual Flexi/ Staffing Employment Trends Report: 2021, the ecommerce and logistics sectors are expected to increase their manpower by 10-25% during the year 2021.
• Unlike last year, the country is not expected to witness significant shortage of front line and blue-collar workers due to early return of the migrants. 
• Also most of the major ecommerce companies came forward to bear the cost of vaccination of the front line workers and their dependants. Amazon announced to cover the cost for vaccinations of 10 lakh individuals, including its employees, service partners, sellers and their dependents. The company also offered Rs. 750 to frontline employees for off-site vaccination. (REFERENCE LINK)
• In March 2021, Flipkart announced to cover the vaccination cost for all Flipkart and Myntra employees and their dependants and began jabbing their frontline staff in the month of May. (REFERENCE LINK)
• BFSI, Retail, E-commerce and ITeS (IT-enabled services), Logistics and companies in food tech will be the top hirers owing to their preparation of the festive sales, more so due to their increased need under lockdown and social distancing protocols. 
• Demand for workers will rise in the banking segment as shopping is likely to spur consumer loans and credit cards. Retailers will take to more hiring as they would need more feet on the ground to service customers by getting the products delivered to their houses. With festivities in, shopping will become a necessity and as stores on high streets and malls struggle to attract footfalls, the demand to get items home delivered will be high. 
• As Atmanirbhar Bharat becomes a reality and vocal for local gains momentum, many MSME’s might also expect an uptake in demand for their goods, and look at hiring.   
• Since companies operating in the essential services category are optimistic about business recovery within this year itself, a spurt in demand for roles in warehouse management, packaging, sorting, security and delivery, among others in urban India is likely. There has already been massive hiring of blue-collar and gig workers in the past month by e-commerce giants.  
• Considering a majority of the workers who are likely to be onboarded during the festive season hiring are migrants and gig economy workers, the government and private sectors need to make efforts to bring them into the ambit of the organised sector so that the social security, job security and health benefits that are more required in the post-Covid-19 era can be readily offered. Job security, health and social security will be the key determinants of festive hiring. 
• It is critical for India to understand the wage, health and job security challenges of this unorganized segment and in addition to initiating schemes like MGNREGA (rural employment guarantee), Ayushman Bharat (health insurance) or food distribution, formalise them and have social security schemes added.  
  

If this is of interest to you and a good story point to explore further, we can arrange for more insights from Lohit Bhatia, President, Indian Staffing Federation, over a TELECON on: 

1. What would be the hiring outlook ahead of the festive season this year? 
2. Sectors expecting to increase their manpower outsourcing in the upcoming festive season? 
3. When this hiring is likely to take mainstream action?  
4. How this year festive hiring trend will be different from past ones?  
5. Job Roles and categories where the hiring of temp staff will be high? 

These are indicative only, as the interaction/conversation progresses, further interesting threads will unfold. 

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