E-tailers like Flipkart, Snapdeal, Jabong and others to hire 60,000 this year

MUMBAI: India's e-commerce companies such as Flipkart may be at odds with foreign rivals such as Amazon on whether or not to allow foreign direct investment, but they seem to be on the same page in anticipating an inflection point for the sector. Between them, the 10 top e-commerce firms plan to hire 60,000 people for the year ending March 31, 2015, the highest in a year for the fledgling industry. The job creation data is for the entire ecosystem: ancillary units, supply chain and logistics and temporary employees.

"The hiring may touch 1 lakh overall, but 60,000 is a safe bet. FY15 will be the inflection point for the e-commerce sector," said Ashish Jhalani, founder of eTailingindia, a research firm that tracks the e-commerce industry.

The industry, which saw sales of $12 billion, is expected to touch $75 billion by 2020, said Jhalani. "For growth, companies have to be ready with engineering teams, customer agents and logistic support to meet the demand," he added.

The data on new hires were provided by the companies in response to queries, except for Myntra and Amazon, where figures provided by industry sources and recruiters have been used as the companies did not share plans.

Many of the firms, notably Flipkart, Snapdeal and Myntra, the largest domestic e-commerce players, are almost doubling their headcount this year to ward off aggressive competitors such as Amazon. Stepping up campus recruitments is also part of the game plan. Some such as TaxiforSure will raise hiring from 250 last year to 1,500 this year.

The main factors revving up the numbers is geographical expansion and competition. Flipkart will increase hiring from 13,000 to 25,000, and out of this 1,200 will be engineers. The e-commerce firm acquired fashion portal Myntra last month and, according to a source, the latter too plans to double its headcount this fiscal from a team of 500 employees.Competitor Snapdeal.com said it will double headcount to 2,600 from 1,300 currently, and increase the number of engineers from 250 to 500.

Amazon, whose aggressive growth plans and emphasis on quick delivery models may be prompting much of the ramp-up by domestic e-commerce firms, refused to share its hiring targets. Industry sources and recruitment heads who did not want to be identified said the company would look at hiring at least 8,000-10,000 this fiscal.

Online food and restaurant listings startup Zomato will double its numbers from 650 in core functions such as tech, sales, content and operations because of its expansion in countries across the Americas, Middle East, Europe, Southeast Asia and Australia, said Upasana Nath, chief recruitment officer. Online ticket booking site Yatra will add 200 to its employee strength of 1,000, compared with 150 last year.

This excludes the addition of third-party workers. Even those with smaller workforces such as Lenskart will look at adding 50 more to the overall strength of 450.

The expansion in business is also likely to lead to a large increase in third-party and blue-collared workers. "People are needed to sustain the entire ecosystem, which will grow fast because more consumers have logged on to ecommerce portals," said Vishal Tripathi, principal analyst of research firm Gartner. Tripathi added that a large chunk of the new hires will be in the contractual and blue-collared categories. Consider the case of Jabong. The company said it would hire 750 employees this fiscal. Although the number is similar to last year, full-time hiring will be 150 compared with 300 in FY14, said Praveen Sinha, founder and MD, Jabong.com, while the rest will be in the supply chain.

Players in the online cab rental segment are also stepping on the gas. Ola cabs will hire 300 employees this month and 10,000-15,000 drivers, compared with 150 permanent employees last year and 5,000 drivers.

The firm will also increase campus intake from 50 to at least 75 in the current fiscal.

Competitor TaxiforSure will expand to 15 locations by 2015 and as aresult overall headcount will rise from 435 to 1,500 employees. "This is based on the confidence we have in the business model and the readiness of the market for such a model. This optimism and confidence is shared by our investors and analysts," said TN Hari, HR head for the company.

It will add 50-75 more to the leadership team who will be responsible for managing new locations. The e-commerce companies are also planning to step up campus hiring.

Flipkart said its campus recruitment will at least touch — if not surpass — last year's 172 offers at IITs and B-schools. It will also hire from foreign campuses such as Wharton and Harvard.