E-commerce hiring to grow 30% on Amazon, local players' push

As foreign and domestic e-retail majors such as Amazon and Flipkart expand their businesses aggressively, hiring activities are expected to grow by over 30 per cent in the sector and may help create up to 50,000 jobs in the next 2-3 years.

According to leading human resources consultancy Randstad India, the hiring in this space is likely to rise by 20-30 per cent in next few years on the back of entry of domestic online start-ups and e-commerce MNCs into Indian marketplace, as also because of setting up of back-office operations for various global businesses.

Another HR firm Unison International says that hiring has been rather slow in the e-commerce space over last couple of years, but recruitments may grow rapidly now by 33 per cent over the previous year as various retail brands are also bringing in their business online.

As per findings of Jigsaw Academy, the e-commerce industry may create 15,000-50,000 jobs in the next three years for data analysts professionals alone.

"The companies are hiring aggressively and are also offering lucrative salaries to attract the right analytics talent," Jigsaw Academy CEO Gaurav Vohra said.

The sector recently saw one of the largest merger deals between homegrown e-commerce majors Myntra and Flipkart, while another domestic firm Snapdeal has also got new investors.

"The deal will only make Myntra's fashion business stronger and we will target more aggressive scale - to this end, our hiring will continue to be extremely aggressive but selective," Myntra VP-HR Pooja Gupta told PTI.

"We are working also to make HR more Technology and Analytics driven and that focus will continue," Gupta said.

According to global major Amazon, which is seen as one of the major competitors for the domestic e-commerce player, the "the industry is growing rapidly and there is still a huge potential for growth".

"Likewise, we have grown exponentially over the last 11 months and will continue to see growth. Our hiring will continue to match this pace and grow accordingly," Amazon says.

HR consultancy MeraJob India's CEO Pallav Sinha said that the sector is "clearly poised for explosive growth".

"While private equity investments in e-commerce companies is one of the reasons for the expectation of this growth, the primary drivers are - proliferation of mobiles; development of digital payment platforms and social media usage.

"Hiring in e-Commerce is therefore poised for growth that could match the job creation rate in mobile telecom in early 2000's. Fiscal 2014-15 would be the tipping-point in this hiring growth in India," Sinha said.

As per experts, e-commerce firms would be looking to hire across different levels of hierarchy and functions as this sector is in an investment phase.

"Hiring will continue aggressively for delivery staff, digital marketing professionals, and for sales, operations, IT and data analytics across levels," Sinha said.

Experts also observed that e-commerce players give preference to people from top rated management institutes, Randstad India CEO Moorthy K Uppaluri said: "There is a positive hiring outlook in this space particularly for tier 1 B-Schools and Engineering colleges since recruiters are looking for top notch talent".

"Also, employers from this sector are preferred recruiter on campuses," he said.

The e-commerce companies are also focusing on hiring lateral talent from top IT companies and niche retail focused firms for their technology functions while they hire from FMCG, consumer durables entities to fill in marketing and logistics positions, the HR firm said.

Besides, Vohra noted that growth industries inevitably attract youth and that significant part of the hiring in e-commerce is at entry or junior levels which accounts for a relatively younger profile of workforce.

In terms of remuneration, e-commerce has emerged to be paying better than the retail while compensation packages for data analytics professionals is higher than banking and financial firms as well as IT BPO sectors, experts said.

"With global e-commerce giants entering India, demand for talent will increase along with compensation for top executives," Randstad India's Uppaluri said.

"The management and technical roles recruited from top B-schools and engineering campuses, have a starting package between Rs 8 to 12 lakhs per annum while senior executive compensations range from Rs 50 to 75 lakhs with attractive employee stock options plans (ESOPs)," he added.

Unison International MD Udit Mittal felt that the salary was more for this sector against the traditional retail "majorly because a lot of people who take up job in e-commerce are taking a higher risk as we never know if the e-commerce business model they are working towards will fly or can backfire".

"Traditionally data analysts in the BFSI sector are paid the highest salaries but e-commerce players are the new entrants, they are building their analytics capabilities and in a bid to get the right analytics talent, are offering lucrative salaries to analysts across levels," Vohra said.