E-com players step up hiring of temp staff

While a part of the delivery and supply chain workers have moved to their native places during the lockdown, a surge in demand is making e-commerce companies to go for big-time temporary hiring, either on their own or through partners.

Amazon India has opened close to 50,000 seasonal roles to meet the surge in demand. This will be a variety of roles in their fulfilment centres and delivery network, including part-time flexible work opportunities as independent contractors with Amazon Flex. The associates will join other thousands of associates across Amazon India’s fulfilment and delivery network and assist them to pick, pack, ship and deliver customer orders more efficiently, the company said.

“This will give the muchneeded frontline employment at a time when most other industries have limited expansion plans. We feel that this could be a turnaround signal for the Indian frontline employment in itself," said Lohit Bhatia, president, Indian taffing Federation.

Snapdeal too has instructed its logistics partners to hire more people to meet the increased demand. It has outsourced the logistics functions and hence the hiring too will happen through these partners.

According to industry insiders, almost 50 to 70 per cent of the delivery and supply chain workforce either employed by the e-commerce companies or by their partners, had left to their native places.