Festival Hiring to Help Create 4.5 lakh jobs in October-December Quarter: Experts

New Delhi: It is raining jobs this festive season as the October-December quarter is likely to create as many as 4.5 lakh vacancies due to a significant uptrend in demand from sectors such as e-commerce, hospitality and retail, experts say.

The hiring landscape has seen an improvement in the past few months due to the revival in business sentiments and scenario, and with the onset of the festival season, there is a renewed focus on employing additional staff to boost businesses.

"The hiring is anticipated to be up by 5-15 per cent during the festive season. The job generation in Q3 is likely to be 3-4.5 lakh with majority demand from e-commerce, hospitality and retail industry," Indian Staffing Federation executive director Suchita Dutta said.

Historically, during the festive seasons there is huge sale across all industries and in order to cater to the large footfall of customers there is a need of manpower, TeamLease Services assistant vice president Sudeep Sen said.

"Conservatively speaking, in the retail sector only, keeping in mind the organised and compliant wage payers, minimum of 25,000 jobs are created across metro & cosmo cities," Mr Sen added.

While India celebrates festivals throughout the year, the last few months are relatively busier, starting with Dussehra celebrated earlier this month, followed by Diwali and then Christmas and New Year.

Consumer spending during these months increases significantly across various products and services and businesses need additional manpower.

Gayathri Vasudevan, CEO of LabourNet Services said, "The e-commerce companies are hiring part time delivery/ logistics people all over, customer service executives are also being hired by FMCD/FMCG companies, retail industry is looking for sales associates on temporary rolls to cater to the demand," Vasudevan said.

Meanwhile, with regard to bonus payments, experts said employees can expect special festival incentives, gifts and cash pay-outs as a percentage of the total salary as the economy is looking up with a new government at the helm of affairs.

"It is a mixed bag scenario, depends completely on the sectors: IT sector continues to pay these bonuses, furthermore all the bonus is not just in terms of monetary benefits, some of them are in terms of kind as well like travel ticket for couple, gifts, insurance policy (with 1st premium free)," TeamLease Services assistant vice president Sudeep Sen said.

Echoing similar sentiments, Indian Staffing Federation executive director Suchita Dutta said, "Companies will have incentives schemes that will be based on profits and will be attractive as usual."