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2.5 lakh festive jobs, and employers short of takers

By Strota Newsroom · 2026-10-04 · How Strota reports

2.5 lakh festive jobs, and employers short of takers
festive hiringe-commerce jobsgig workquick commercehousehold money
E-commerce, quick commerce and logistics need between 2.5 lakh and 2.7 lakh seasonal workers, up from 2.16 lakh, while 35 per cent of employers say they cannot find enough applicants.

India's festive season is set to create between 2.5 lakh and 2.7 lakh temporary and gig jobs across e-commerce, quick commerce and logistics, staffing estimates reported by PTI say, against about 2.16 lakh last year. The platforms doing the hiring have announced the biggest festive build-out in years. The complication, in the same week's reporting, is that workers are not queueing up in numbers that match the volumes.

The companies have published the numbers themselves. Amazon India said on 2 September that it has created more than 1.6 lakh seasonal work opportunities across more than 400 cities, with 20 new fulfilment centres, 6 new sort centres and 150 new last-mile delivery stations across 118 cities, and an investment of over Rs 2,800 crore in its network. Flipkart has announced more than 2.5 lakh direct and indirect opportunities including gig workers, of which nearly 75,000 are first-time entrants, with about 60 per cent of the roles in last-mile operations and more than 900 new festive delivery hubs.

Myntra is adding more than 26,000 seasonal roles, including 8,000 delivery partners and 2,700 customer service roles. Meesho expects to enable over 10 lakh seasonal opportunities, split into around 6.5 lakh across its seller network and 3.75 lakh in logistics, with nearly 1.3 lakh sellers doing the hiring. Quick commerce is the fastest-moving piece: Adecco India's Deepesh Gupta estimates festive hiring will rise 15-20 per cent this year, logistics and last-mile delivery up 30-35 per cent, and quick commerce taking 40-45 per cent of the flexible workforce against 30-35 per cent earlier.

Almost half the demand sits outside the metros: about 45 per cent of the workforce requirement is expected to come from tier II and tier III cities, through warehouses, dark stores and delivery stations in places such as Lucknow, Bhubaneswar, Jaipur and Coimbatore. That is where a short festive contract matters most, because a town with little year-round logistics work gets six to eight weeks of it.

Then the bottleneck. Indeed's Festive Season Outlook 2026, a survey of 1,277 employers and 2,569 employees and jobseekers, found 35 per cent of employers expecting insufficient applicant availability, 28 per cent naming commuting and transport constraints, 26 per cent anticipating post-offer no-shows and 25 per cent expecting a mismatch in pay expectations. Employers are bidding for the workers as a result: 47 per cent plan performance or attendance incentives, 44 per cent intend to pay overtime or peak-shift premiums, and 28 per cent are considering completion or retention bonuses.

Workers in the same survey are asking for something other than more money. 61 per cent of those open to festive work said they would consider night shifts if safe transport were provided, and 55 per cent said they would commute farther with transport support. The anxieties run the other way too: 32 per cent said delayed, irregular or missed payments would make them hesitant to accept a role, 25 per cent worried about the absence of written contracts or clear terms, and 34 per cent said a verified employer and a trustworthy job posting would sway the decision.

The mechanism is familiar. Festive demand is concentrated into a few weeks, so the work is real but brief, and a worker will not take a night shift in an unfamiliar town if getting home after midnight is unsafe or unaffordable. That makes transport, not the wage, the binding constraint: arrange the ride and the same pay reaches a larger pool. A completion bonus prices the risk that a worker leaves on day three.

Ajay Sharma, an HR and legal adviser quoted by ETV Bharat, framed it as a cost problem rather than a pay problem. Joining bonuses and overtime premiums fill vacancies quickly, he said, but raise labour cost without securing stability, and timely salary payments, written contracts and safe transport matter more to retention than the headline wage.

Not every platform is doing it the same way. Zepto's chief operating officer, Vikas Sharma, said the company is investing in a stable, permanent workforce rather than relying on temporary staffing. That is a reminder that the 2.5 lakh figure is an industry estimate, and that quick commerce is the segment most likely to convert seasonal demand into year-round posts.

The total also needs a careful reading. Amazon's 1.6 lakh are described as seasonal work opportunities rather than confirmed hires. Flipkart's 2.5 lakh has always counted direct and indirect employment. Meesho's 10 lakh are opportunities enabled across a seller and logistics ecosystem rather than payroll posts. The common unit is the opportunity: a driver, a picker and a packaging assistant all count, even when a seller does the hiring.

A legal backdrop decides how much of this work becomes durable. Karnataka's Platform-Based Gig Workers (Social Security and Welfare) Act, 2025 requires aggregators to contribute to a welfare fund, with a fee fixed at 1 per cent of food and grocery delivery transactions, 50 paise for a two-wheeler ride, 75 paise for a three-wheeler ride and Re 1 for a four-wheeler ride, collections the state expects to reach between Rs 250 crore and Rs 300 crore a year.

The law is contested. The Internet and Mobile Association of India, with Swiggy, Eternal, Zepto, Urban Company and Valmo Transportation, has asked the Karnataka High Court to strike it down as repugnant to Parliament's Code on Social Security, 2020, which already asks aggregators to contribute between 1 per cent and 2 per cent of annual turnover. The platforms say the state framework duplicates the central one; the state says it adds to it. Until that is settled, a festive worker's welfare cover depends on the state they deliver in.

What the record does not establish is how many of the advertised opportunities turn into paid weeks. The 2.5 lakh to 2.7 lakh is an estimate by a staffing firm, the platform numbers are announcements, and the Indeed findings are what employers and workers say they intend. None of it shows that incentives will close the gap, or that a worker who gets a few weeks of festive work still has a shift in December. Demand is strong enough that the bargaining has tilted toward the person doing the packing and the delivering, but this week's data cannot say whether that lasts beyond the season.

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This story was written by the Strota Newsroom from publicly reported and publicly posted sources, drafted with AI assistance and checked against automated editorial-quality and accuracy gates, with human editorial oversight. Individuals who shared their experience on social media are not identified. See our editorial standards, sourcing and AI-use disclosure. Found an error? Tell us — we correct transparently.