The increasing demand of the e-commerce sector has now led to logisticians pulling up their sleeves and fortifying themselves to deliver customer satisfaction and support e-commerce growth.
Owing to this growth, the logistics providers are building themselves up with increased hiring. As per reports, the headcount in the industry has shot up by 20-25% over the last year compared with a growth of12-14% in the pre-pandemic years.
Logisticians are not only adding staff to their delivery executives but also pickers, packers, loaders, drivers, and of course customer service executives.
As per Teamlease estimates, the Logistics industry’s workforce currently stands at more than 40 million.
The industry is not only adding more people but also creating new roles and skillsets, with the increased adoption of automation.
Reports from the Hindu Business Line suggest that over 1.3 Million blue-collar jobs are up for grabs in India. As per the listing on the ASEEM portal, India has been experiencing a growing demand for skilled manpower across sectors, namely, logistics, apparel, and retail.
In the last few years, especially during the pandemic, the logistics industry has pushed for the setting up of new warehouses and delivery centers, even in remote areas of the nation. This has also contributed to opening doors for more job opportunities not just in urban India but also in tier two and tier three cities.
Online grocery delivery platforms, which have seen a drastic surge in demand during this pandemic are also increasing their employee count to capitalise on the demand.
BigBasket since February has hired at least 5,300 people mostly across its warehouse and delivery teams, while Grofers added more than 2000 people for these segments since the beginning of the year.
Many start-ups, providing software solutions for the logistics sector are also stirring up their workforce. Companies like Shiprocket have been adding junior to mid-level resources to strengthen the engineering, product, logistics, accounts, management, sales, and marketing teams. On Monday, the company announced its plans to further expand operations in the Middle East and India in the coming six months.
The Logistics Industry in the coming years is believed to witness a lot of up-skilling and re-skilling while providing existing employees with options for lateral roles within an organisation. A delivery executive can be re-skilled to become a consignment tracking personnel or pickers/packers can be up-skilled to manage digital printing operations.
