Post-Covid hiring: More small businesses, startups look to onboard people in Q4 amid pandemic recovery

Skill, Labour, Talent for MSMEs: As India’s small and medium enterprises (SMEs) continue to gradually recover from the Covid impact, their intent to hire manpower has also improved quarter-on-quarter. While 19 per cent of small businesses are likely to hire people during the January-March quarter of the financial year 2020-21, up from 13 per cent during Q3, the percentage of medium-sized employers looking to hire manpower has also increased from 15 per cent during Q3 to 19 per cent during Q4, according to the TeamLease’s latest Employment Outlook report that surveyed 429 small, 261 medium, and 125 large businesses.

While more small businesses are likely to hire employees during Q4 than medium-sized enterprises, large businesses too may hire more this quarter with the intent to hire among them increasing from 27 per cent to 34 per cent during the said period. Nonetheless, the “hiring intent among medium-sized businesses, only marginally lower than small and large businesses, indicates steady revival through the unlock stages,” according to the report.

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Among leading sectors, the hiring intent for e-commerce and technology startups saw a 10 per cent jump from 31 per cent during Q3 to 41 per cent during Q4. Flipkart had recently reportedly planned to hire 300 graduates in 2021 while Swiggy had decided to onboard close to 36,000 street food vendors across 125 cities under the PM SVANidi scheme. There is a “40 per cent increased demand for UI, UX developers, web designers, VR experts, AI designers and experts, infrastructure architects, cybersecurity experts, and special analysts. Advanced software languages Python and Swift are driving job demand in the sector,” the report added. In terms of functional areas, 29 per cent of businesses, overall surveyed, are looking to hire people in sales, while 40 per cent are looking to hire in blue-collar jobs, 24 per cent in IT and 23 per cent in marketing, etc.

“Majority of the sectors have indicated an intent to invest in manpower acquisition indicating buoyancy back. While signs are encouraging, still too early to predict how much more time will it take to return to the pre-covid levels,” said Rituparna Chakraborty, Co-Founder & Executive Vice President, TeamLease Services. The improvement in hiring intent came following a barrage of job losses and layoffs among small businesses and startups triggered by the pandemic. While the pandemic is far from over, the businesses and sectors have adjusted themselves to the new normal.